



Class F3L3TI 

Book &WT 

CopyiigM 

CORrMlGHT DEPOSm 



SOME 



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Old Historic Landmarks 



OF 



VIRGINIA AND MARYLAND 



DESCRIBED IN 



A HAND-BOOK FOR THE TOURIST 



OVER THE 

% - 

WASHINGTON, ALEXANDRIA AND MOUNT VERNON 




ELECTRIC RAILWAY. 



BY 

W. H. SNOWDKN, 

Of ANDALUSIA, VA. 




ILLUSTRATED. 



wii.mpi.vuui 



ki 



PHILADELPHIA '. 

PRINTRD BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY. 
1894. 



\ 



Yun 

SLY 



Copyright, 1894, 

BY 

William II. Snowden. 



TO THE READER. 



THIS hand-book was prepared especially for tourists over the New 
Electric Railway from the National Capital, by way of Alex- 
andria, to Mount Vernon. In it will be found not only a summary 
of the life, services, and character of General Washington, and a 
description of his home, his farms, and his farming operations, and 
the changes which have been incident to his land estate since his pass- 
ing away, but also descriptions of numerous other outlying historic 
landmarks on both shores of the Potomac. The writer trusts that 
the book, hastily prepared in brief intervals of pressing duties, may 
prove an acceptable companion to all strangers wayfaring among the 
many interesting historic points which will be opened to them by this 
convenient and delightful route of travel to the home and tomb of 
the venerated Washington. 

To Dr. J. M. Toner, of Washington City, the successful editor and 
publisher of Washington journals, diaries, and other papers ; to Mr. 
Hubert Snowden, of the Alexandria Gazette ; Mr. H. Harrison Dodge, 
the courteous and capable superintendent of Mount Vernon ; Mr. J. 
R. C. Lewis, of Berryville, Virginia ; Mr. William F. Came, Mr. Law- 
rence Washington, Mrs. Dr. William Powell, and Miss Mary Lloyd, 
of Alexandria ; Rev. M. L. Poffenberg, of Broad Creek Church ; 
Miss Whittingham, of Baltimore, and others, the writer hereby ac- 
knowledges his obligations for valuable assistance. Should any his- 
toric reader find in the book inaccuracies, or wish to suggest additions 
of new facts pertaining to any of the "landmarks," they will be 
gratefully received for a subsequent edition. 

W. H. S. 

Andalusia, 

Arcturus, P. O., 

Fairfax Co., Va. 



SOME 

OLD HISTORIC LANDMARKS 



OF 



VIRGINIA AND MARYLAND. 



ALEXANDRIA, VIRGINIA. 

SEVEN miles below the National Capital, on the opposite shore of 
the Potomac River, stands the city of Alexandria, with a popula- 
tion of eighteen thousand, and a history dating back to the year 1748, 
when Thomas, Lord Fairfax, Lawrence Washington, and their associ- 
ates, as incorporators by authority of the General Assembly of Virginia, 
organized the beginning of its municipal government. Fifty years 
before that time "not a single white man had permanent residence 
there, and only a few vears before, 1669, the whole of the domain 
from Great Hunting Creek to the falls of the Potomac, extending 
miles inland and embracing six thousand acres, had been purchased 
of the Indians for six hogsheads of tobacco. Within the limits of 
this town have occurred many noteworthy events of much more than 
local interest connected with our national, civil, and military records, 
only a few of which, however, can have even slight mention in a 
li, oid book of travel. Here, in 1755, came Commodore Keppel, with 
his English naval fleet, bringing in fourteen transports, an army com- 
manded by Major-General Edward Braddock to commence, in co-op- 
eration with the provincial forces, that memorable expedition against 
the French and Indians in the Ohio Valley, which ended so disas- 
trously to the command 2 -1 so fatally to their obstinate and despotic 
commander. The old stone building — Carlyle House — on Fairfax 
Street is still standing, where Braddock, Keppel. and the five pro 
vincial governors. Shirley, of Massachusetts ; Delancey, of New York : 
Morris, of Pennsylvania; Sharpe, of Maryland, and Dinwiddie, of 
Virginia, held a council of war in April to determine plans for the 
prospective campaign. 

Alexandria at the opening of the present century was a prosperous 
commercial port, and many of her citizens acquired great wealth from 
traffic, and built for those times stately dwellings, the most of which 
still remain as line examples of colonial architecture. Under the 

5 



6 SOME OLD HISTORIC LANDMARKS 

hospitable roofs of numbers of them, still pointed out, Washington 
and many of his illustrious compeers of ante- and post-Revolutionary 
days were frequent guests. 

The circumstances of the civil strife brought to this old town years 
of continuous excitement. Its accustomed peace and quiet were 
broken by the strange note and din of martial preparation, the 
tramp of regiments, the clatter of hurrying cavalry, and the rumble 
of artillery and commissary wagons and ambulances. The Ellsworth 
tragedy of 1861 was an event which, more than any other of that 
memorable time, served to widen the breach of fraternal feeling be- 
tween the North and the South. The following graphic account of 
the occurrence is from the Alexandria Gazette, Industrial Edition : 

• ' Probably no survivor of the Army of the Potomac visits Alexandria 
without inquiring for the Marshall House. It became famous in his- 
tory in the early days of the late war, and has so remained ever since. 
It was in this building that one of the bloodiest tragedies of the 
war was enacted, in which two men met their death in a terrible en- 
counter. 

" The spring of 1861 found Alexandria, as well as many other South- 
ern cities, in a ferment of excitement. The place was held by a few 
companies of Confederate soldiers, who Haunted the stars and bars 
literally within sight of the Capitol and under the guns of the Federal 
steamer ' Pawnee,' which was anchored off the city at the time. 

" One beautiful Saturday afternoon, a few weeks before the lamentable 
tragedy which concentrated the attention of the country on Alexandria, 
James Jackson, who was the lessee of the Marshall House, a sort of 
tavern, more than a hotel, situated on the southeast corner of King 
and 1'itt Streets, (lung to the breeze, from the roof of that building, a 
large sized Confederate Mag, with the defiant assertion that the man 
who lowered it would do so over his dead body. The occasion was 
one of some rejoicing and enthusiasm among those who had cast their 
fortunes with the Confederacy, or who sympathized with the disunion 
movement. 

"A feu days before the capture of Alexandria, President Lincoln 
anil his Cabinet from some elevated spot in ^\'ashinyton, with field- 
glasses, viewed the objectionable flag, and in the course of the con- 
versation that followed Mr. Lincoln remarked that the ensign of 
treason would not remain there long; nor did it, as on the night of 
Thursday, May 23, 1861, a silent move was made on this defiant city, 
which resulted in its capture and the stampede oi its Confederate gar- 
rison to Manassas Junction, on the Orange and Alexandria (now Vir- 
ginia Midland) Railroad, about twenty seven miles distant. 

•• The plans of the Federal troops, through some miscarriage, proved 
ineffectual so far as capturing the rebel soldiers was concerned, and 
only a small company was netted. The Federal troops were sent in 
three directions when the move on the city was n ade — some by way 
of ( Tain Bridge above Oeorgetown, others via the Long Bridge, where 
trains now pass from Washington into Virginia, and the remainder by 
water. The Confederate pickets around the wharves and on the out- 
skirts of the city gave the alarm in time to allow a safe retreat, and 



OF VIRGINIA AND MARYLAND. 7 

when Uncle Sam's soldiers entered the city those of the Confederacy 
were well on their way south. 

"The New York Fire Zouaves were among those who reached Alex- 
andria by water. No doubt their young and patriotic, though ill- 
starred colonel had viewed the obnoxious flag from a distance as well 
as Mr. Lincoln, and had longed for the opportunity of lowering it. 
The Marshall House is situated five blocks in a westerly direction 
from the wharf where the Zouaves landed. It was very early in the 
morning when Colonel Ellsworth, with a small squad of his men. pro- 
ceeded up the streets of Alexandria, little dreaming that in less than 
half an hour's time his lifeless body was to be borne over the same 
street to the boat from which he had just landed. Cameron Street, 
a commercial thoroughfare, up which he wended his way, was com- 
paratively deserted. But few people were moving, the bulk of the 
city's inhabitants being asleep. The inmates of the Marshall House 
were still in the arms of Morpheus, oblivious to the fact that the rebels 
had vanished before the defenders of the Union, while the flag of the 
Confederacy was hanging limp in the absence of any breeze. The 
ill-fated Colonel Ellsworth soon reached the fatal tavern and with his 
half-dozen followers obtained an entrance. Meeting with no opposi- 
tion, and not dreaming for a moment they would encounter any resist- 
ance in the face of the fact that the city had been captured, the 
colonel proceeded immediately to the roof for the purpose of taking 
possession of the coveted flag. 

" After passing through the front door, a staircase was encountered 
which ran spirally, the first turn leading to the second floor, the third to 
the next floor, and the fourth to the garret and roof. The colonel and 
his men, before they reached the roof, met a man in his night-clothes 
coming out of one of the rooms, of whom they inquired for the pro- 
prietor. The man replied that he was a boarder himself, and knew 
nothing of the whereabouts of the proprietor. It has since been sug- 
gested that the unknown individual was Jackson himself. It took the 
Zouaves but a few minutes to lower the flag and detach it from the pole 
which protruded from the trap-door, and Colonel Ellsworth having 
taken it in charge began his descent. About half-way down the flight 
of stairs leading from the garret he saw Jackson, but partially dressed, 
emerge from one of the rooms on the landing armed with a double- 
barrelled gun. Ellsworth, little dreaming of the bellicose nature of 
the man with whom he had to deal, pleasantly remarked to him, ' I've 
gotten a prize.' Jackson made some defiant retort, and. before any 
one could divine his intention, raised his gun and discharged it at the 
colonel. An extraordinary charge of buckshot had been placed in 
the weapon, and a hole was torn in the unfortunate Ellsworth's breast 
large enough in which to place one's fist. Colonel Ellsworth, it is 
said by some, fell without a groan, though others have asserted that he 
gave vent to an audible sigh. In his descent he fell on his face on 
the landing, and while his life's blood was flowing, his followers were 
avenging his death. The weapon Jackson used was an ordinary 
double-barrelled shotgun, and after killing Ellsworth he took aim at 
those who were with him, but before he could pull trigger the second 



8 ME OLD HISTORIC LANDMARKS 

time the gun was knocked upward by the Zouaves and the charge en- 
tered a door-frame. Francis E. Browned, one of the squad, then sent 
a bad crashing into Jackson's head, and as he fell, sword-bayonets 
were thrust through him. Jackson's body was forced down the flight 
of stairs leading to the second floor and fell on the landing. The 
body of Ellsworth was subsequently raised by those who had accom- 
panied him into the fatal building, covered with an American 
and silently and sorrowfully borne to the boat from which he had a 
short time before landed. 

•• ( lonsidering the terrible tragedy which had been enacted, the day 
proved a remarkably quiet one. Jackson's body was soon picked up 
by his friends, washed, and placed in a coffin, and it lay in state 
throughout that day and night. 

•• The scene of the tragedy was visited by numbers during the day. 
The landing upon which Jackson fell and where he had writhed in 
death agony presented a sickening sight. Blood filled a space about 
two yards square, and it was necessary to walk upon tiptoe to avoid 
treading in it. There was a pool of blood about a foot square where 
Ellsworth had fallen. 

•' Colonel Farnham succeeded Ellsworth in command of the Zouaves. 
On the 21st of July following, the regiment participated in what 
proved to the Federal army the inglorious battle of Bull Run. The 
Zouaves and the famous Black Horse Cavalry engaged in hand-to-hand 
encounter throughout that eventful day, with terrible carnage to both, 
during which Colonel Farnham was struck on the ear by a piece of a 
shell, from the effect of which he died a few weeks later. In the 
stampede from the fatal field the Zouaves suffered greatly, and the Mon- 
day following the survivors straggled into Alexandria in a bedraggled. 
dejected condition, many of their comrades being then stark and stiff 
on the bloody field of Bull Run. A cold rain had set in, and no pro- 
visions had been made for their reception, and they were on the verge 
of suffering. It was in this emergency that numbers of the promi- 
nent people of Alexandria, though Southern sympathizers, exhibited a 
Christian spirit which the good-natured Zouaves were not slow to ap- 
preciate. Houses were opened and entertainment afforded many of 
them and their straggling amfrtres by parties whose political predilec- 
tions were hostile to the principles for which the vanquished had 
fought. 

•• The Zouaves lingered about Alexandria for a few months, and. the 
term of their enlistment having expired, they were mustered out of 
service. 

"Jackson, the destroyer of Colonel Ellsworth, was a typical South- 
erner. Though brave and fearless, his political predilections had run 
riot with his judgment, and, rather than let the rash threat of protect- 
ing his flag come to naught, he preferred sacrificing his life. There is 
little to be said in palliation of his act save that he lived at a time 
when men's blood had reached the fever-heat of excitement, and when 
rashness was occasionally exhibited by the champions of both sides. 

•• The killing of Ellsworth produced the greatest sorrow as well as ex- 
asperation at the North, and Alexandria was immediately besieged by 




w - 4. 






RSI v // 




r-'*' -'- , -' i "**' " j! , ~A??.'.', 



(Page 9.) 



CHRIST CHURCH, ALEXANDRIA, VA. 




Page 9.I 



MARSHALL HOL'SE. 




(Page 10.) 



LAFAYETTE HOUSE. 



OF VIRGINIA AND MARYLAND. g 

parties from a distance anxious to inspect the scene of the tragedy. 
A piece of oil-cloth on the landing on which the colonel fell was 
gradually cut up and carried away by relic hunters. The flooring sub- 
sequently met the same fate, and finally the balusters were cut away, 
piece by piece, and carried North." For several years the old Mar- 
shall House was looked upon as a sad memento of war times by soldiers 
of both sides — by the Federals as the place where a brave and promis- 
ing young officer laid down his life at the beginning of the four-years' 
conflict, and by the Confederates as the spot where a determined sym- 
pathizer of their cause showed a courage in the face of inevitable death 
equalled by few on either side. 

"About seventeen years ago, on a cold, weird night, the Marshall 
House was found to be on fire, and, despite the exertions of the fire 
department, but little more than the bare walls were left standing. 
Upon being rebuilt, it ceased to be a house of entertainment, and the 
new building is used for other purposes." 

There is more at Alexandria to call up the memory of Washington 
than in any other place in our country except that of Mount Vernon. 
Alexandria was, emphatically, his own town. It was his post-office, 
his voting- and market-place. It was the meeting-place of the lodge 
of Freemasons to which he belonged. He was a member of its cor- 
poration council, and owned property within its limits. He was the 
commander of its local militia, and was a member of its volunteer 
fire company. He slept in the houses of many of its leading citizens, 
and danced the minuet with its fairest daughters. He was a vestry- 
man of the parish, and was a regular attendant of Christ Church, where 
his pew is kept undisturbed to this day. The tourist who enters 
Alexandria by way of the Pennsylvania Railroad and takes the city 
electric railway at the head of Cameron Street will find Christ Church 
at the corner of that and Washington Street, four squares from the 
local depot. On the greensward of this church, seen on the left as 
the car turns from Cameron into Columbus Street, Washington, in 
1774, first counselled resistance to British tyranny. There, too, in 
1 86 1, General Lee first agreed to take command of the Virginia forces 
at the opening of the Civil War. Continuing and turning into King 
Street the car crosses Washington Street, where looking to the right 
may be seen the Confederate monument at the place where the Alex- 
andria soldiers left for the war, May' 24, 1861. Two blocks further 
east at Pitt Street the car reaches the Marshall House, on the right 
hand side, noted for the meeting and tragic death of Colonel Elmer 
Ellsworth and Captain James Jackson. The east window of the 
second story marks the place of the encounter. At this part of the 
street in early days were the head springs of Orinoco Creek, which 
one hundred yards north washed the foot of a hill on which stood 
Washington's town house, which, from 1763 to 1799, whenever he 
came up from Mount Vernon, he used for the transaction of business. 
Then passing still further to the east the car at Royal Street reaches 
the point where, the house on the northwest corner being afire, Wash- 
ington leaped from his horse and assisted to work the old Friendship 
engine. Look a hundred feet north and see on the west side the City 



io SOME OLD HISTORIC LANDMARKS 

Hotel, from the door of which, in 1799, Washington gave his last 
military order to the Alexandria volunteers. On the east side see 
now, surmounted by a tower, the market-house which covers the spot 
where Washington had his encounter with Colonel Payne, so familiar 
to historic students. Here, also, is a museum in connection with the 
Masonic lodge, of which Washington was a member, containing many 
relics and mementos of the past, and particularly of the pater patrice. 
At the next block where the cars turn into Fairfax Street, note at the 
turn on the left the old frame, hip-roofed house, built in 1763, as the 
mansion of Colonel William Ramsay, a connection of Washington, 
and where the great chief was a frequent visitor. One hundred yards 
north, up Fairfax Street, stands within the area of the Braddock House 
the stone building, residence of John Carlyle, where the governors of 
the provinces, before mentioned, held with Braddock and Keppel their 
council of war. 

The visit of General Lafayette to Alexandria is one of the green 
spots in the city's history. There are some now living who remem- 
ber the occasion ; others who have a dim recollection of it when, as 
little children, they toddled along, having hold of their parents' 
hands. This was in the year 1824. The city at that time put on a 
holiday attire, and the enthusiasm animated all from the youngest to 
the oldest. 

At that time hundreds of Alexandrians could be found who had 
fought through the seven years' conflict for independence. To them 
the name of Lafayette was sacred, and many who participated in the 
honors conferred upon the illustrious Frenchman had been encouraged 
by his presence and valor on the field of battle. 

It is unnecessary to describe all the details of his reception and en- 
tertainment while here. Let it suffice when it is said that almost 
every one in the community turned out and vied in doing honor to 
him who, when the infant republic most needed help, left his own land 
and cast his fortune with us, and lived to see the independence of a 
country declared which has grown and prospered ever since. 

The house where Lafayette was entertained while in Alexandria is 
one of the most prominent in the city. It is situated on the south- 
west corner of St. Asaph and Duke Streets, and is now occupied by 
Mrs. Susan C. Smoot. Such are a few of the many points of historic 
interest which the old town possesses for the curious wayfarer within 
its borders. 

FROM ALEXANDRIA TO MOUNT VERNON. 

MOUNT VFRNON, the home and last resting-place of George 
Washington, the illustrious commander-in-chief of our colonial 
armies, and the first President of the United States, is distant from Alex- 
andria nine miles, and is most conveniently reached by the comfortable 
cars of the new electric railway, a road which, for thoroughness in con- 
struction, equipment, service, and safety, is not surpassed by any 
other in the United States. Its course lies down the Virginia shore 
of the Potomac and through a region of country abounding in 



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II • gWFr.-.r» ! ■■ 




(Page 10.) 



BRADDOCK'S HEADQUARTERS, ALEXANDRIA, VA. 



OF VIRGINIA AXD MARYLAND. 



II 



attractive natural scenery and interesting historic associations, and 
the run is made in half an hour at frequent intervals every day. 

Emerging from Alexandria by way of Fairfax Street, a very pleasing 
view of the Potomac, with its broad estuary of Great Hunting Creek, 
is presented to the eye. Immediately to the left is Light House Point, 
which marked the southeastern boundary corner of the old Virginia 
limits of the District of Columbia, as they were run and established 
in 1 791. Opposite, on the Maryland shore, are seen Rozier's Bluff 
and the heights of Fort Foote ; and further down the expanse of 
Broad Bay uniting with the Potomac. To the right, looking from 
the railway bridge over Hunting Creek, stretches a scope of country 
pleasingly diversified by gently sloping hills and vales, and dotted 
with hamlet and farm-houses. Prominent among the many objects 
of the landscape is the tall spire of the Episcopal Theological Semi- 
nary, which, if it could speak of the transactions of some of the 
years of the past, could tell startling stories of the presence of muster- 
ing armies. Around it in almost every direction, at the beginning of 
the civil strife, the plains and hill slopes were white with the tents of 
the gathered regiments, brigades, and divisions of Union soldiers. 
Everywhere over the suddenly populated region was heard the drum's 
wild beats, the fife's shrill notes, the bugle's echoing calls. The 
numerous remains of their intrenchments, earthworks, and other de- 
fences still prominent at every turn for miles, attest with melancholy 
certainty the great preparations which were then made by them for 
the impending conflict, which ere long broke with such terrific force 
within our borders. Union forts frowned from every salient point of 
those now so quiet and peaceful hills, and a hundred fJagstaffs un- 
furled over all, their starry flags to the passing winds. The locality 
is one naturally possessing a saddening interest to the tourist. Every 
year it is visited by numbers of the surviving veterans who figured in 
the scenes of its stirring times of over thirty years ago. 

Just beyond the Seminary, in full sight up the valley, are the pick- 
eting grounds which long divided the two armies ; and near by is 
Bailey's Cross Roads, where was manoeuvred by the Union forces one 
of the grandest military reviews of any country or time. Through 
these camping and drilling grounds, and far on beyond, may still be 
traced the course of the old military road, laid out through the then 
dense wilderness a hundred years previous, by which a portion of 
Braddock's army under General Halket marched on their disastrous 
expedition. 

Fairfax Court House, from the Seminary, is distant fourteen miles, 
and the battle-field of Bull Run about twenty. Half-way between the 
Seminary and the railway bridge is Cameron Ford, where Hunting 
Creek is crossed by the old highway from Alexandria to Fredericks- 
burg and Richmond. Over this highway, less than a hundred years 
before, one bright morning in the month of August, three horsemen 
starting from Mount Vernon might have been seen pursuing their journey 
to Philadelphia to attend the first session of the General Continental 
Congress, which was to commence on the fifth of the September follow- 
ing. They were George Washington, Patrick Henry, and Edmund 



12 SOME OLD HISTORIC LANDMARKS 

Pendleton, all of Virginia — truly a noble companionship. Washing- 
ton in the meridian of his days, mature in wisdom, comprehensive in 
mind, sagacious in foresight. Henry in the youthful vigor and elas- 
ticity of his bounding genius ; ardent, acute, fanciful, eloquent. Pen- 
dleton, schooled in public life, a veteran in council, with native force 
of intellect, and habits of deep reflection. Such were these apostles 
of liberty repairing on their august pilgrimage to the Quaker City to 
assist in laying the foundations of a mighty empire. 

Over this highway, too, General Sherman in 1865 led his army back 
to the National Capital on their return from marching from " Atlanta, 
to the sea." Over this same highway, too, Washington always passed 
when he rode into Alexandria on horseback or in his coach. It was 
also in colonial and long-after times the great thoroughfare of all the 
Southern Atlantic seaboard travel to Philadelphia, New York, Boston, 
and other Northern cities. Then it was not so easy a matter for the 
members of Congress to get to the "sessions" as at present. The 
transit from California to New York is now made in less time by flying 
train than was then required to make the old stage-coach journey from 
Richmond to the same city. A short distance above the railway 
bridge is the new iron bridge of the turnpike to Accotink, ten miles 
distant, and just beyond on the hill crest to the right are the almost 
intact earthworks of Fort Lyons, the most southerly and the strongest 
of the sixty-eight inclosed forts and batteries of that long cordon of 
war-time defences of over thirty miles in length. Near by Fort Lyons is 
Mount Eagle. Here was the home, still remaining, of Brian, seventh 
Lord Fairfax and son of William of Belvoir. He was rector of Christ 
Church, Alexandria, from 1790 to 1792. His title was confirmed to 
him by the House of Lords in 1800. Mount Eagle was on the road 
over which Washington always passed going to Alexandria, and he 
was a frequent visitor there. 

Leaving the bridge of Hunting Creek the railway enters next and 
passes through the lands of the " New Alexandria Land and River 
Improvement Company." Their town, projected two years ago, 
already numbers two factories, a spacious hotel, and a number of neat 
cottages — a nucleus which will no doubt be, ere long, rapidly aug- 
mented with the revival of financial confidence throughout our country, 
since the company offers extraordinary inducements to manufacturers 
and others to come in and help to make their enterprise a success. 

From New Alexandria the course of the road is along the river 
shore over an uninterrupted alluvial level until it reaches the station 
at the "Dyke," when it gradually rises by a slight deflection to the 
right until it ascends to the highlands at Belmont Station, still a mile 
farther. Beyond this station a few hundred paces is the line of sur- 
vey marking the upper boundary of the " Old Mount Vernon Estate"' 
of eight thousand acres, which in Washington's time was divided into 
five main farms or plantations, and designated respectively, River, 
Dogue Run, Mansion House, Union, and Muddy Hole farms. River 
farm, which the railway strikes first, and formerly known as Clifton's 
Neck, was purchased in 1760 for the sum of three dollars per acre. 
It consisted of two thousand acres, but has been since divided and 




z [ 

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$ s 




OF VIRGINIA AMD MARYLAND. 13 

subdivided like all the other farms into smaller tracts, and are occupied 
by settlers chiefly from the Northern States of New Jersey, Pennsylvania, 
New York, and elsewhere, who have made many improvements upon 
them by clearing up the grounds, enriching the soil, planting orchards, 
and constructing fencing and comfortable dwellings. The surface of 
these highlands is gently undulating, and consists of a great diversity 
of soils, which are remarkably easy of tillage, and very susceptible of 
a high and profitable fertilization, and are particularly adapted to the 
production of all kinds of farm staples, fruits, and garden vegetables 
needed by the adjacent cities. The divisions lying immediately along 
the river afford situations for homes of surpassing beauty ; and while 
they are proverbially healthy, and are abundantly supplied with peren- 
nial springs of pure soft water for every domestic requirement, the rail- 
wav makes them suburban by giving them quick and easy transits to 
and from the National Capital at all times of the year. 

A short distance from Wellington Station to the left and in full 
view stands on the river-bank the old Wellington House, built by 
Washington in 176S. It was occupied by Colonel Tobias Lear, who 
was private and military secretary to the general, and afterwards pri- 
vate tutor to his adopted children, George W, Parke Custis, and his 
sister Nellv. and who was in 1805 United States commissioner to treat 
with the hostile powers of the Barbary states at the time of the memo- 
rable expedition of General Eaton. By a provision of Washington's 
will he was to be tenant of the house and premises rent free until his 
death. This was in consideration of his great services to him, and 
especially during the war. He died in 1S16. Afterwards, the farm was 
occupied by two generations of the Washington family, Charles A., a 
grand-nephew, being the last, until 1859. Charles was a genial, jolly 
fellow, but not so well up in the arts of practical farming as his illus- 
trious uncle. On one occasion, he went into town to have some plough- 
shares sharpened which were urgently needed to make ready his grounds 
for wheat sowing, but falling in with some old cronies he was induced 
to make a month's visit to the " Springs ;" but it was all the same to 
I n< le Toby and the rest of the waiting " hands," for they had a long 
holiday, though the wheat crop went by default. In farming' he was 
an experimentalist, though always disastrously. He read in the 
Country Gentleman of the great profits of barley growing, and so re- 
solved to try his hand also. One morning in spring, when the robin 
and bluebird were piping their jubilant songs, he had his "gang" 
ploughing a ten-acre field. The barley was sown, and the harvest time 
came, and the grain was flailed out and loaded on a two-horse team for 
the Alexandria market. The hopeful proprietor mounted his saddle- 
horse and rode in, in advance to dispose of his crop. But barley was an 
unknown quantity he found, on arriving at the store of his merchants ; 
but later, however, he succeeded in bartering his grains to a brewer 
for a barrel of beer, which he sent home to his cellar. The tidings 
of the transaction soon spread among his many jolly town compan- 
ions, and, slipping down the river by boat after nightfall to the Wel- 
lington House, they succeeded before morning in drinking up the 
entire crop of barley. 



14 



SOME OLD HISTORIC LANDMARKS 



From Arcturus, the next station beyond, a smooth, winding avenue 
leads down a few hundred paces to Andalusia, one of the many de- 
sirable places on the " Old Estate" which the railway has made readily 
accessible to those who are in quest of situations for charming sub- 
urban homes. This point in our journey is best described in the sub- 
joined story of " A Summer Outing." 

THE STORY OF AN OUTING AT ANDALUSIA, VA. 

TWELVE miles from the National Capital, down the Potomac on 
the Virginia shore, is a spot whose memories will be like holy 
benedictions to me through all the coming years of my life. I was 
needing rest, and there I found it in a sweet and quiet seclusion such 
as I had never enjoyed before, — a rest which had no circumstance to 
disturb nor shadow to mar. 

This place Elysian is reached by the Mount Vernon Electric Rail- 
way. From Arcturus Station, midway between Alexandria and the 
home of Washington, you wind by a hard, smooth avenue along 
green fields, and through orchards laden with ripe and ripening fruit- 
age, till you are within the cooling shadows of a hundred stately oaks 
and walnuts, many of them of a century's growth. Here in the 
midst of these leafy sentinels is a home which in all its surroundings 
and influences, more nearly than any other, fills up the measure of my 
ideal dreamings. 

Andalusia is distant from the travelled highways, and before the 
coming of the electric car was a terra incognita, with rarely a visitor, 
save from the surrounding neighborhood, to invade its quiet borders. 
The passenger from the deck of the passing steamer descried it in the 
distance, showing like a gem in its setting of river and cool embower- 
ing trees, but it was only a glimpse of hidden beauties to be remem- 
bered and cherished or forgotten. Now by rapid and easy transit 
many pilgrims find their way thither, although it is but a private 
home. Little picnic parties from the cities adjacent, through the 
courtesy of the proprietor, hie there through the summer days to spread 
their repasts under the shadowing boughs, and make merry on the in- 
viting green sward. Artists come to sketch the delightful and varied 
views of its environs, the cycler to wheel over the smooth avenues, 
the angler to throw his line into the still river nooks, and the wearied, 
like myself, to seek the balm of rest. 

In this ideal home by the Potomac I found a welcome and a hospi- 
tality which recalled the many stories I had read, of entertainments in 
Virginia homes of the olden time. For tired nature there was no 
lack of sweet restorers. There were libraries, inviting to every range 
and department of knowledge. There was music to soothe and har- 
monize, pictures, and cabinets of curios to amuse, and a wilderness of 
flowers to please the eye. 

All too swiftly passed the time, as I fondly tarried in the midst of 
so many allurements from the dull and perplexing routine of business 
in the city. Hours of the bright midsummer days I watched from 
the vine-hung verandas of the ''Old Mansion," the broad river's 



— > 




OF VTRC.rxrA AND MARYLAND. 



15 



expanse before me, with its flitting cloud shadows, its sails, and passing 
steamers. Sometimes it was a leisure stroll along the pebbly shore, or 
boating in the still waters that beguiled me, and sometimes it was 
straying over the site of the old Indian town of Assaomeck, looking for 
arrow-heads, javelin points, fragments of pottery, and other remains 
of the ancient dwellers. 

One serene evening, as the parting rays of the setting sun were 
fading beyond the hills I joined a boating party for an excursion to 
the opposite shores of "Maryland, my Maryland." A delightful 
ride over a stretch of two miles of the still waters brought us to the 
head of ''Broad Bay," where we landed, and then walked in the 
twilight a short distance up the valley to an ancient chapel, erected 
in the time when all the surrounding region was a part of the realms 
which owned the rule and sway of the king of "Old England." 
Within the walls of this chapel, our Washington, Lord Fairfax, and 
many other noted men of that time were wont to worship. Many 
generations of its congregations are lying under the crumbling and 
fallen stones of its bramble-grown graveyard ; and as I pondered 
where so often had been read that last, solemn ritual of "dust to 
dust," many a vision flitted before me, of happy bridals and solemn 
funeral trains of the "dead past" of the long ago. 

As we turned in pensive mood from the sacred place, the full moon 
was up and beaming brightly on the still waters of the grand old river 
to light us back on our homeward way. 

The sketch of my outing would be incomplete, if I failed to mention a 
sail down the river to Fort Washington, and also a ride over the electric 
road to Mount Vernon. Reader, did you ever climb to the heights of 
the old fort ? If not, it is worth a journey to do so. Go there on some 
fair midsummer day, and survey from its vine-covered battlements the 
broad and varied expanse outlying before them. In that expanse the 
eye may trace out the National Capital, with its towering dome and obe- 
lisk, sitting superbly enthroned in the mist and dimness of the far away 
hills to the north ; and the grand old river flowing down in its seaward 
course through its setting of green slopes and plains and wooded crests 
gives to all the view a charm and beauty not often surpassed. 

A visit to the home and tomb of the immortal chieftain is surely an 
event to linger long in the memory of every patriot. 

But I am reaching the limits of the typos, and so must not linger, 
otherwise the story of my outing with its round of varied pleasures 
and enjoyments would be a long one. To the friends who had kindly 
bidden and welcomed me to their hospitalities I said good-by, and 
with many regrets at parting turned homeward from the long to be 
remembered scenes of Andalusia. 

From Andalusia to Mount Vernon the distance is four miles, with 
the intervening stations of Herbert's Spring, Snowden, Hunter's, and 
Riverside Park at Little Hunting Creek, which make the occupants of 
numerous adjacent farms conveniently accessible to this important line 
of travel. The creek divides the Original River Farm of Washing- 
ton's map from the Mansion House Farm, and one mile beyond the 
road terminates at the gates of the Mount Vernon Mansion. 



t 6 SOME OLD HISTORIC LANDMARKS 

BROAD CREEK— OLD CHURCH AND OLD HOUSES. 

FOUR miles below Alexandria, on the Maryland shore, and oppo- 
site to Andalusia, on the Virginia side, is the estuary or bay of 
Broad Creek. There Washington often went, as he tells us in his 
diary, with his friend and neighbor, Diggs, of Warburton Manor, to 
throw his line for the finny denizens of the still waters. At the head 
of this bay, where now only the light-draught scow-boat can ascend 
the silt-tilled channel, large schooners used to lie at their moorings and 
load with cargoes of tobacco, wheat, and corn for foreign ports. It 
was a busy neighborhood then, when the odd and ancient-looking 
houses, which have stood through the changes of one hundred and 
fifty to two hundred years, were comparatively new, and the surround- 
ing lands were fertile and produced abundantly all kinds of farm pro- 
ducts. 

There is much in this isolated locality to interest the curious delver 
into the scenes and circumstances of the olden time. The weather- 
beaten tenements, so dilapidated and forlorn in appearance ; the im- 
poverished fields and the forsaken landing-place, with never a freight 
or cargo to be loaded or discharged, will murmur to him, as he 
thoughtfully scans the desolation, in audible stories of how the genera- 
tions of toilers came and went — how they fretted out life's fitful fever, 
and were at last gathered from their labors of success or failure to the 
densely populated burial-place of the settlement. 

More than two hundred years ago an Episcopal church was organ- 
ized here by the first dwellers. The parish was at first known as Pis- 
cataway, afterwards King George's, and the Church of St. John's. 
The first house for worship was of logs and built in 1694, rebuilt with 
bricks in 1722, and enlarged to its present dimensions in 1763. John 
Addison, William Hatton, William Hutchinson, William Tannhill, 
John Emmet, and John Smallwell were of its first vestry, and Rev. 
George Tubman its first rector. This church antedates all other Epis- 
copal churches of the Potomac region of Maryland. The burial-place 
of the old kirk is densely peopled with the dead of departed congrega- 
tions. Over most of the graves is a wilderness of tangled vines. Many 
of the stones are levelled and sunken nearly out of sight, with inscrip 
tions worn and hard to decipher. Hundreds of graves Jiave no stones 
at all, presumably oi the earliest burials. A broad marble slab lies 
over the remains'of Enoch Eyells, killed in a duel, August 7, 1805, 
with the following inscription : 

( ii, our clear son, obey the call of Heaven; 
Thy sins were tew — we trust they are forgiven. 
Yet, oil, what pen can paint the parents' woe? 
( Kid only can punish the hand that gave the blow. 

The quarrel of the duelists had its origin in offensive remarks made 
at a ball in the village of Piscataway, and the duel took place at John- 
son's Spring, on the Virginia shore. The young man who was killed 
and who had made the remarks was averse to the encounter, but was 
goaded on to his death by his father and mother. His antagonist was 
named Bowie. 




OLD HOUSE AT BROAD CREEK. Ml). 
200 years old. 







>T. JOHN S CHURCH, BROAD CREEK, MD. 
200 years old. 



1 P ige r6.) 



OF VIRGINIA AND MARYLAND. I7 

THE DOGUE INDIANS-ASSAOMECK. 

Alas for them ! their day is o'er, 
Their fires are out from shore to shore ; 
No more for them the wild deer bounds, — 
The plough is on their hunting-grounds. 
The pale man's axe rings thro' their woods; 
The pale man's sail skims o'er their floods. 

ON the shores of the Mount Vernon estate, and far inland to the 
west, once roamed a numerous tribe of aborigines whose prow- 
ess was acknowledged and feared by all the surrounding tribes. The 
chief settlement or village of "Assaomeck," according to the inves- 
tigations of Professor Holmes, of the National Ethnological Bureau, 
occupied the site now known as Andalusia, four miles below Alexan- 
dria. The great numbers of stone axes, javelin and arrow points, 
and fragments of pottery which have been turned up there by the 
plough, sufficiently attest the fact. Here, in 1608, that fearless explorer 
and doughty old soldier, Captain John Smith, on his way up the Po- 
tomac to beyond the present site of the National Capital, stopped to 
hold parley with the reigning chief, and smoke the pipe of peace and 
friendship. 

FORT WASHINGTON, AND THE MOUTH OF THE 
PISCATAW AY— LEONARD CALVERT WITH HIS 
VANGUARD OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY. 

SEVEN miles below Alexandria, on the commanding heights of the 
old manorial estate of "Warburton," in Maryland, are the 
frowning battlements of Fort Washington. They help to give pic- 
turesqueness to the grand landscape of which they are a part, and 
they represent an expenditure of many hundred thousands of the pub- 
lic treasury, and many years of hard toil of long-vanished builders. 
But that is all. For the defence of the National Capital, they are prac- 
tically useless against the new methods of naval attacks. In 1814, 
when the British fleet came up the Potomac, the garrison then occu- 
pying the works abandoned them and allowed the enemy to proceed 
to Alexandria and plunder the city without molestation. At the foot 
of the heights, just under the walls where the waters of the Piscata- 
way and the Potomac unite, came, in 1634, Governor Leonard Cal- 
vert with two hundred followers, most of them Roman Catholic gen- 
tlemen and their servants, to establish, under the provisions of a royal 
charter to his brother, Cecil Calvert (Lord Baltimore), a settlement of 
the new region of Maryland, as yet untenanted save by roving abo- 
rigines. He anchored his vessels, the " Dove" and a small pinnace, 
and proceeded to negotiate with the Indians, who assembled on the 
shore to the number of five hundred. The chieftain of the tribe 
would neither bid him go nor stay. " He might use his own discre- 
tion." It did not seem safe for the English to plant their first set- 
tlement in the wilderness so high up the river, whereupon Calvert 
descended the stream, examining in his barge the creeks and estuaries 
near the Chesapeake. He entered the river now called St. Mary's, 



1 8 SOME OLD HISTORIC LANDMARKS 

and which he named St. George's, and "about four leagues from its 
junction with the Potomac" he anchored at the Indian town of Yoa- 
comoco. To Calvert the spot seemed convenient for a plantation. 
Mutual promises of friendship were made between the English and the 
natives, and upon the twenty-seventh day of March, 1634, the Catho- 
lics took quiet possession of the place, and religious liberty obtained 
a home — its only home in the wide world — at the humble village 
which bore the name of St. Mary's. 

GEORGE WASHINGTON AND HIS HOME. 

Tell us again the story 

Our sires and grandsires told ; 
We love to hear it often, 

'Tis ever new, tho' old. 

ON the fourteenth day of December, 1799, George Washington, 
the successful soldier and leader, the true patriot, the wise states- 
man, the estimable private citizen, the public benefactor and friend of 
all mankind, passed peacefully from earth, in his quiet home at Mount 
Vernon, to the inheritance of the rich rewards awaiting a life of exceed- 
ing great usefulness and honor. Since the occurrence of that event 
which brought grief and sorrow to the infant nation he had so faith- 
fully labored to direct and establish, only ninety-five years have elapsed, 
hardly five generations of his posterity; and a few are still remaining 
among us who were then children. Yet, such was the sublime char- 
acter and great worth of the revered chief, and such have been the 
grand results to the world of his heroic deeds and unselfish sacrifices 
that, in our grateful remembrance and almost pious veneration of him, 
the vista of time through which we look back in contemplation of his 
life and public services seems to us more like one of long centuries 
than that of the few scores of solemn anniversaries which have been 
recorded. As this vista lengthens and grows dimmer with the passing 
away of each succeeding year, we delight more and more to recount 
the story of his childhood and early training, of his military services 
and exploits, of his subsequent civil career, and, finally, of his retired 
lite as a farmer on his broad Virginia estate, where, in the peaceful 
tranquillity of a mind untroubled by vain ambitions or harassing re- 
grets, he lived the happiest days of his eventful life. 

Mount Vernon, the home and tomb, will ever continue the grand 
focal point to which the generations of our republic will fondly turn 
in their love and admiration for the great chief. Then shall we not 
keep on telling the "old, old story"? — the story which, though so 
often repeated, will he forever new, and will forever charm and please, 
— the one which poets shall sing and orators proclaim — the one which 
sires and grandsires shall relate to the eager ears of little children on 
their knees, which shall cross every sea, and be heard in every land 
and in every clime. Let it be told, and again and again repeated, 
so that no event or circumstance connected with the brilliant career 
of the pater patricc shall remain unknown or forgotten. His life and 
the precious memories of its well-shaped and rounded works are the 
common patrimony, and will be kept fresh and perennial. 



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OF VIRGINIA AND MARYLAND. 



1 9 



WASHINGTON'S LINEAGE— THE MOUNT VER- 
NON HOME. 

THE political dissensions which convulsed the English people in 
the beginning of the eighteenth century, finally brought violent 
death to their king, Charles the First, and established in the place of 
their monarchical government, the protectorate of Oliver Cromwell. 
As a result of the revolution, the prominent adherents of royalty found 
themselves without occupation or favor under the new rule, and many 
of them left the country and sought asylum in the newly-opened lands 
beyond the sea. Among this number were two brothers, John and 
Andrew Washington, of Yorkshire, men of note and goodly reputa- 
tion in their native manor, and descended from a long and illustrious 
line of families whose genealogy dated back nearly to the time of the 
Norman conquest. Virginia was already quite numerously settled by 
English cavaliers, who still kept up their allegiance to monarchy and 
the Anglican Church. With these far-away colonists the brothers 
joined their influences and destinies in the year 1657, and immedi- 
ately purchased of Lord Thomas Culpeper a large tract of land in 
the county of Westmoreland, bordering the Potomac River. John 
married a Miss Anna Pope of the same county, and took up his resi- 
dence on Bridge's Creek. He found the lands very rich, and became 
an extensive planter, and shipped large quantities of tobacco to Eng- 
land and Holland. He was popular among the colonists, filled the 
office of magistrate, and served many sessions in the House of Bur- 
gesses. Possessing a spark of the old military fire of some of his 
ancestors, we find him, according to the records, as Colonel Washing- 
ton, leading the Virginia military forces in conjunction with those of 
Maryland against a band of Seneca Indians, who were raiding the set- 
tlements of that region. In honor of his sterling worth and dis- 
tinguished public services, the parish in which he lived was called 
after him, and still bears the honored name of Washington. He died 
January, 1677, and his remains lie entombed in the family burying- 
ground at Bridge's Creek. By his will a portion of his original pur- 
chase or purchases, consisting of two thousand five hundred acres lying 
between Dogue Run and Little Hunting Creek, now in Fairfax 
County, was devised to his son Lawrence, from whom it descended 
by will to his son Augustine, born 1694, by his first marriage to Jane 
Butler. From Augustine, who died April 12, 1743, it descended to 
his oldest son, Major Lawrence Washington, who was married to 
Annie, oldest daughter of William Fairfax, of Belvoir. This por- 
tion or tract of land was the nucleus of the Mount Vernon estate. 
On coming into possession of it, Lawrer.ce Washington cleared and 
cultivated the lands and built the middle portion of the mansion, 
consisting of four rooms, and named the place Mount Vernon in 
honor of Admiral Vernon, under whom he had served as a soldier at 
the siege of Carthagena. He died July 26, 1752, at the age of 
thirty-four, and was buried in the great vault at Mount Vernon. His 
portrait hangs in the Mount Vernon mansion. In his will the Mount 
Vernon estate was devised to his daughter Sarah, with the provision 



2o SOME OLD HISTORIC / XNDMARKS 

that if she should die without issue it was to become the property of 
his " loving brother" George, which so transpired, as she survived her 

father but a short time, and so his brother, or half-brother as was the 
fact, inherited the estate, and came into full possession of it before 
he was twenty-one years of age. The widow of Lawrence had been 
amply provided for by bequests of other lands, and afterwards was 
married to Colonel George Lee, an mule of Arthur and Richard 
Henry Lee, of Revolutionary fame and memory. Owing to his con- 
nection with the military operations at that time, by the colonists 
against the French and Indians on the Ohio frontier, George was 
absent from Mount Vernon during the most of seven years. He 
came to its occupancy in the year 1759, after the fall of fort Du- 
quesne, the defeat of the combined enemies, and the cessation of hos- 
tilities, and shortly after was married to Mrs. Martha Custis, the beau- 
tiful and wealthy widow of Colonel John Custis. 

Washington was now twenty-seven years of age, in the full vigor of 
health,. and being free from engrossing public engagements, with the 
exception of his duties as a member of the colonial legislature, to 
which he had just been elected, he steadily bent his energies and judg- 
ment to the personal management and improvement of his home on 
the Potomac. As already noted this consisted of a dwelling with a 
ground floor of four rooms and a scope of twenty-five hundred acres 
of land. He subsequently enlarged the dwelling-place to its present 
proportions, extended the boundaries of the estate, already extensive, 
so as to include five thousand five hundred more, with a frontage 
along tide water of nearly ten miles, and then commenced a series of 
changes over the entire area which in the course of a few years amply 
demonstrated to all who witnessed the results that he was as sensible 
and practical as a farmer as he had been in his methods of fighting the 
Indians. Whenever necessary he drained the grounds, adopted the 
plan of rotating crops, procured the best agricultural implements then 
to be obtained, planted and sowed the best seeds, erected comfortable 
shelters for his overseers and hands, had his home smithy and wagon- 
shops for the repairs of all tools, carts and wagons, his carpenters for 
building and repairing the farm buildings and fences, had his grist-mill 
lor grinding his grains, his huntsmen for procuring wild game and his 
fishermen for supplying everybody on the premises with fish, then so 
abundant in the river. In a word, all things on the estate were so 
directed as to best subserve the end of making the most of all existing 
possibilities and satisfying all the reasonable wants of a rural commu- 
nity such as was there maintained, binder the vigilant eye of the 
distinguished master everything went on with regularity and certainty. 
He carefully looked after the details of his farm operations, and being 
a very observant man, he never in any of his journeys abroad failed to 
notice any new agricultural improvements, and was very read) always 
to put it into practice on his own acres. Bringing to his aid the 
knowledge he had acquired in marking out the boundaries in his 
younger days of the wilderness possessions of Lord Fairfax in the val 
ley of the Shenandoah with compass and chain, he himself laid off 
his estate into five main farms. The portion in the elbow of the Po- 




(Page 19.) 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 



OF VIRGINIA AND MARYLAND. . 21 

tomac, and between that stream and Little Hunting Creek, was named 
and known as Clifton's Neck or River Farm, being the first of the 
land of the Mount Vernon estate entered by the railway going down 
from Alexandria, and consisted of about two thousand acres. Be- 
tween Little Hunting Creek were laid off the Mansion House Farm 
of 1 200 acres, Union Farm of 1000 acres, Dogue Run Farm of 2000 
acres, and Muddy Hole Farm of 1300 acres. 

Several of these local names are found in Washington's will, which 
devises the property east of Little Hunting Creek, to George Fayette 
Washington ; about two-thirds of the portion between Little Hunting 
Creek and Dogue Creek, lying on the Potomac, and including the 
Mansion House Farm, to Bushrod Washington ; and the residue being 
the southwesterly part of this tract, to Lawrence Lewis and his wife 
Eleanor Park Lewis. The soil and other natural capabilities of his 
estate are accurately described by Washington. The greater part he 
says is a grayish loam running to clay. Some parts of it are of a 
dark mould, some inclined to sand, scarcely any to stone. He adds, 
•• A husbandman's will, could not lay the farms more level than they 
are." And as to the river, " the whole shore is one entire fishery," 
" and springs, with plenty of water for man and cattle, abound every- 
where on the grounds." 

In addition to his own dwelling-house and other buildings on the 
Mansion House Farm, he had, what he calls, an overlooker's house and 
negro quarters on each of the other farms. He speaks also of a newly 
erected brick barn, "equal, perhaps, to any in America," on the 
Union Farm, a new circular barn on Dogue Run 'Farm, and a grist- 
mill hear the mouth of Dogue Run. Some idea of the extent of 
Washington's farming operations may be formed from the following 
facts. In 1787 he had five hundred and eighty acres in grass, four 
hundred acres in oats, seven hundred acres in wheat, the same number 
in corn, with several hundred acres in barley, buckwheat, potatoes, 
peas, beans, and turnips. His live stock consisted of one hundred 
and forty horses, one hundred and twelve cows, two hundred and 
twenty-six working oxen, heifers and steers, and five hundred sheep, 
and of hogs, many, almost numberless, running at large in the wood- 
lands and marshes. He constantly employed two hundred and fifty 
hands (negroes), and kept a score of ploughs going during the entire 
year, when the earth and the state of the weather would permit. In 
1780 he slaughtered one hundred and fifty hogs for the use of his 
family and negroes. When not called away from Mount Vernon by 
public duties. Washington rode daily over his farms in pleasant weather, 
and kept himself thoroughly acquainted with the details of everything 
that was going on from season to season over his broad acres. Every 
locality was mapped. Every branch of labor was svstematized, and all 
his farming operations were in charge of competent overseers, who 
were required to regularly account to him of their stewardship with 
exactness. 

With the passing away of the winter of 1799 Passed also from earth 
the stately presence of him who gave to the home and estate of Mount 
Vernon all their historic character and importance, and endeared them 



22 SOME OLD HISTORIC LANDMARKS 

for all time to the generations of his countrymen to come after him ; 
but thenceforth for many a long year, in the absence of the tireless 
care and watchful eye of the master, the fair fields were despoiled of 
their wonted fertility, and abandoned afterwards to the pine and cedar 
and the returning wild deer. The mansion itself and the immediate 
surroundings were sadly suffering from neglect and the hands of the 
spoiler. 

Such was the condition of this historic domain, when in 1854 came 
to its occupancy, the vanguard of the colony of farmers from New 
Jersey, Pennsylvania, New York, the New England States, and States 
of the West, who bought large areas of the worn-down but desirable 
lands, and commenced that work of restoration and improvement 
which has been attended with such remarkable success. 

At that time there were but three white families on the whole estate. 
Now they number nearly forty families, and cultivate farms varying 
in extent from twenty-five to three hundred acres, with values. of from 
fiftv to five hundred dollars per acre. 

In the year 1856 was incorporated by the Legislature of Virginia 
the "Mount Vernon Ladies' Association of the Union," having for 
its object the restoration of the " mansion and grounds," and the 
reverential care thenceforth of everything pertaining to them. With 
this idea in view, donations were solicited from the patriotic women 
of the republic, and the " Home and Tomb" with two hundred acres 
of the surrounding lands were purchased of John Augustine Washing- 
ton, for the sum of two hundred thousand dollars. The work, of ob- 
taining the necessary funds for this laudable purpose was begun in 
great earnestness. Miss Pamela Cunningham, of South Carolina, all 
honor to her name and services, and who by common consent had 
taken charge of the work, was constituted first regent, or manager of 
the association, and she appointed vice-regents in every State of the 
Union as her assistants. Edward Everett now gave his tongue and 
pen to the work. He went from city to city, like Peter the Hermit 
pleading for the rescue of the Holy Sepulchre, delivering an oration 
on the character of Washington for the fund. Within two years from 
the first deliver)' of the oration, he paid into the treasury of the as- 
sociation fifty thousand dollars, an amount increased later to sixty- 
eight thousand dollars. The vice-regents each appointed State com- 
mittees, and the money raised was nearly all in dollar subscriptions. 
Jn Julv, 1859, three years after the movement was inaugurated, and 
our year before all the purchase-money was paid and a deed given, 
the late proprietor allowed the work of restoration to begin, — the 
work which has resulted in the admirable condition and arrangements 
everywhere apparent. Ami may we not indulge the hope that hence- 
forth this place, to which every patriotic American turns with pride 
and reverence, may be safe from a relapse to the desolation from 
which it was retrieved? 









(Page 23.) 



<7U>* 



?-£y 



OF VIRGINIA AND MARYLAND. 23 

LAWRENCE WASHINGTON, THE FOUNDER OF 
THE MOUNT VERNON HOME. 

LAWRENCE WASHINGTON deserves more than the incidental 
notices which have been accorded to him in other chapters of 
this Hand-book. In our regard for the merits and career of his dis- 
tinguished brother, on whom too much praise cannot be bestowed, we 
are apt to lose sight of the noble and magnanimous spirit which was 
so instrumental in moulding and shaping that character which shines 
with such transcendent lustre in the galaxy of our Revolutionary 
heroes. Fifteen years older than his brother George, he at once in 
his orphanage filled the place of the correct fraternal exemplar and 
paternal adviser. When Lawrence came up from the lower Potomac 
to the occupancy of the domain of twenty-five hundred acres "lying 
along and south of Little Hunting Creek," George accompanied him, 
and remained with him in the new house which he there builded in 
1743, and named in honor of his old commander, Mount Vernon, until 
Thomas, Lord Fairfax, needed him to take up his compass and chain 
and establish the " buts and bounds" of his possessions in the valley 
of the Shenandoah. 

Major Lawrence Washington was the second child and only sur- 
viving son of Augustine Washington, and was born in Westmoreland 
County, Virginia, in 17 18. He was a man of correct habits and 
good business qualifications, and had mingled much with prominent 
personages of his time. He and his brother Augustine were among 
the organizers of the " Ohio Company" to explore the western coun- 
try, encourage settlements, and conduct trade with the Indians. It 
was in his relations with this company that he won an enviable dis- 
tinction, as did his brother George after him, by avowing himself an 
advocate of religious toleration at a time when the statutes of Vir- 
ginia recognized but one religious faith. Never' very strong physically, 
with the continued and increasing pressure of his public duties in the 
state council and the land company, his health gave way, and in 1751, 
accompanied by his brother George, he went for healing to the Island 
of Barbadoes, but receiving no relief he returned to die at his Mount 
Vernon home, July, 1752. His marriage with Annie Fairfax had 
been blessed by four children, three of whom had died. His sur- 
viving child, Sarah, was still an infant at the time of her father's 
death. After providing in his will for his wife, he left Mount Vernon 
to his daughter, but in the event of her death without heirs, it was to 
go to his "beloved brother George." This daughter died within a 
year, and George inherited the " Home" before he was twenty-one 
years of age. 



24 



SOME Of.n HISTORIC LANDMARKS 



BELVOIR— THE OLD COLONIAL SEAT OF THE 
VIRGINIA FAIRFAXES. 

They come, the shapes of joy and woe; 

The airy crowds of long ago ; 

The dreams and fancies known of yore, 

That have been but shall be no more : 

They change the cloisters of the night 

Into a garden of delight ; 

They make the dark and dreary hours 

Open and blossom into flowers. 

A SHORT distance below the mansion of Mount Vernon, just across 
the beautiful Bay of Dogue Creek, was situated a manorial 
estate, densely wooded, and many hundreds of acres in extent. It was 
a part of a very extensive domain known as the northern neck of Vir- 
ginia, comprising in its area the twenty-three counties embraced be- 
tween the head-waters of the Potomac and Rappahannock Rivers, and 
exceeding in extent more than five millions of acres. This region of 
country had been granted by letters-patent in 1688 from James the 
Second of England to Lord Thomas Culpeper, once Governor of Vir- 
ginia from 1682 to 1686. From him it had descended through his 
daughter, Catharine Culpeper Fairfax, to her son Thomas, sixth Lord 
Fairfax of his line, a man of learning, a graduate of Oxford College 
and member of a literary club, of which the celebrated Addisorfwas 
the leading spirit, and to whose pens we are indebted for the "Spec- 
tator." He was a grandson of Thomas Fairfax, the renowned gene- 
ral of the parliamentary or roundhead armies of Oliver Cromwell. 
By the terms of the original patent to Culpeper, he was constituted sole 
proprietor of the soil of this wilderness empire, with authority to divide, 
sell, grant, and occupy at his will, always, however, to be under alle- 
giance to the royal prerogative, as was the common phraseology of 
grants in the days of feudalism. A royal gift, indeed, was this grant 
to one royal subject. 

To the fine estate on the Potomac, first mentioned in the year 1738, 
came Colonel William Fairfax, a cousin of Lord Thomas, from York- 
shire. England, and founded the home which he named " Belvoir," 
for Belvoir Castle was one of the most celebrated of the English castles, 
and one of the finest of the present day. The manorial residence 
which he built, one of ample dimensions and appointments for the 
time, had a situation which commanded extended and charming views 
of the river and its environs. Washington, in his diary, incidentally 
tells us that it was " built of bricks and of ample dimensions, of two 
stories, with wide passages and cellars, and convenient offices, hall for 
servants, stables and coach-house, and with a large garden adjacent, 
stored with a great variety of fruits, all in good condition." The 
writer visited the ruins, early in the spring of the present year and 
traced out, and measured the foundations, and found them to be of the 
following dimensions: the foundations of the main building, sixty by 
thirty six feet, with walls twenty-seven inches thick and cemented by 
mortar made from oyster shells, which had become extremely hard 
and tenacious. The cellar had occupied the whole area, and was seven 




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OF VIRGINIA AND MARYLAND. 



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feet deep, with partition walls twenty-four inches in thickness, with 
pavements of bricks seven inches square and four inches thick. Out- 
side of the gable walls were heaps of quarry stones, denoting that 
there had been outside chimneys with large foundations. Everything 
about the parts of the walls still left intact, told of massiveness. Large 
trees had grown up from \\\q debris inside of the foundations, and briars 
everywhere trailing gave to the spot a desolate appearance. The man- 
sion had been enclosed by a wall of bricks, the wide foundations of 
which may still be traced through their entire extent of one hundred 
and fifty by one hundred feet. Adjacent are the ruins of five other 
brick buildings, presumably the great kitchen, the coacherie, and 
quarters for the house-servants; and in front, on the river bank, two 
hundred feet above the rippling tide, were the ruins of the summer 
house, which had commanded so many pleasant views and fair pros- 
pects. There is but an acre or so of cleared ground about the ruins. 
This must have been the site of the "garden," for there were thousands 
of daffodils waving their golden petals in the morning breeze, just as 
they had done when my Lady Fairfax was wont to tread those now 
neglected paths in the long, long years before. Through all the time 
of the coming and going of the many spring times, they had faithfully 
kept up their bright successions, and were yet remaining, silent me- 
mentos of the kindly care of vanished hands. But every vestige of 
the choice fruit trees described by Washington had disappeared, saving 
some veteran pear and cherry trees, which were yet thrifty-looking 
and white with bloom. A grape-vine eight inches in diameter was still 
vigorous by the fallen walls, its branches again putting forth buds with 
the return of another spring. The wells, from out of whose cooling 
depths so many refreshing draughts had been drawn by the " old oaken 
bucket" for man and beast, were choked and dry. The desolation 
was complete. But the morning sun was shining warm and radiant 
over it all. The buds of the forest boughs were opening into foliage. 
The glad spring birds were lightly flitting, and chirping their songs of 
love ; and hard by, the rippling waters of the beautiful river, were hur- 
rying on in their seaward course, just as when the watchful eyes and 
careful hands of the masters were there, to order and direct all things 
aright. 

In the wood near adjoining, rows of sunken mounds indicated the 
family burial-place. A score of graves may still be counted, without 
stone or vestige of enclosure. The marble slabs which had marked 
the last resting-places of William Fairfax and Deborah, his wife, the 
first master and mistress, and which had remained intact until a few 
years before the war, had been sacrilegiously broken up and carried 
a\va\ . Surely, this place of sepulture, so neglected and forlorn, ought 
to be enclosed, and receive from some friendly hands that care and 
attention which the eminent worth, of at least one of those whose ashes 
are there entombed, so well deserves. The old road may still be traced, 
from the mansion down to the river's edge, over which Washington 
so often passed, in his visits by water to his friends die Fairfaxes. 

Here at Belvoir, in those primitive times, lived like feudal magnates, 
the representatives of the honorable Fairfax family, who, marrying and 



26 SOME OLD HISTORIC LANDMARKS 

giving in marriage with other noted scions of Virginia, saw their 
wealth and influence steadily increase, as the years passed on. 

As we behold the mansion now, in imagination, after the lapse of a 
century and a half, with the help of, not only Washington's descrip- 
tion, but with that of accounts gathered from old inhabitants of the 
neighborhood many years since dust, and with the aid of the tracings 
of the ruins already described, our idea is that of a stately manor 
house, very similar, in outline and finish, to most of the old colonial 
dwellings still to be seen in Virginia, down to two generations ago. It 
has two stories and an attic, with steep over-jutting roofs, dormer win- 
dows, and huge outside chimneys of stone. There are belfry, and out- 
look, and ample verandas, for the summer breezes and views of the 
near flowing river. Within, the halls and rooms are spacious, with 
high ceilings, wainscoted and panelled walls, and the fireplaces are 
wide for warmth and cheery flames. This is our ideal of the " Belvoir 
House." There is not only a " fruit garden as has been stated," with 
bountiful supply of varieties of fruits, but there is a garden of flowers 
where " my lady Fairfax" has her box-bordered beds of lady's-slippers, 
sweet-williams, marigold shrubs, lilacs, and the like ; and there are 
winding paths, and carriage-ways around the mansion, which lead 
down under the branches of great oaks, to the edge of the rippling 
waters or out into the broad fields. 

The apartments of the Belvoir House, judging from a partial inven- 
tory of the household effects sold at the two public sales in 1774, must 
have been furnished as luxuriously as any old England manor house 
of the time. The purchases made by Washington alone, amounted to 
nearly two hundred pounds sterling. 

William Fairfax, the first proprietor, was born in 1691, and was the 
grandson of Henry Fairfax, second son of fourth Lord Fairfax and 
Anna Harrison Fairfax. He had received a collegiate education, had 
seen much of the world, and his mind had been enriched and ripened 
by varied and venturous experience. Of an ancient English family, 
he had entered the army at the age of twenty-one, and subsequently 
had served with honor in the royal navy, both in the East and the 
West Indies, — had officiated as governor of New Providence, after 
having aided in rescuing the town from pirates, also, had fought vali- 
antly for his sovereign, Queen Anne, in Spain, under Colonel Martin 
Bladen ; and after coming to Belvoir, we find him a member of his 
majestie's honorable council of Virginia, and at one time, its presiding 
officer. Having married in the Bahamas, Sarah, daughter of Major 
Walker of Nassau, she accompanied him to England. Previous to his 
coming to Belvoir, he filled an appointment, from 1725 to 1734, as col- 
lector of customs in New Salem, in the province of Massachusetts. 
There, his first wife died, and was buried. His son George William 
was born in Nassau. Three of his children were born in Salem. 
Thomas, of the royal navy, was killed in battle, Annie married Law- 
rence Washington, and was the first mistress of Mount Vernon ; and 
Sarah married John Carlyle of Alexandria, Virginia, who was a major 
and commissary, in the French and Indian War. By a second mar- 
riage, with Deborah Clark of Salem, he had three children, — Brian, 




GRAVES OF WILLIAM AND DEBORAH FAIRFAX. 



' Where shall once the wanderer weary 

Meet his resting-place and shrine : 
Under palm trees by the Ganges, 
Under lindens of the Rhine'.' 

Shall I somewhere in the desert 
I hvc my grave to stranger hands'.' 

( tr upon some lonely seashore 
Rest at last beneath the sands'.' 

'Tis no matter! God's wide heaven 
Must surround me there as here: 

And as death lamps o'er me swinging 
Night by night the stars burn clear.' 



(Page 27.) 



OF VIRGINIA AND MARYLAND. 27 

eighth Lord Fairfax, born in 1732 and died in 1802 ; William Henry, 
killed at the storming of Quebec in 1759 ; and Hannah, who married 
Warner Washington, cousin to George Washington. 

William Fairfax had come to Virginia to act as agent for his 
cousin, Lord Thomas, in the management of his estates ; and in 1739 
came also for the first time the Lord Proprietor himself, to become 
better acquainted with his wilderness possessions. After a year's 
sojourn he returned to England, but as he had been so well pleased by 
the Virginia country, its climate, and resources, after settling up his 
affairs there, and giving to his cousin Robert, his Kentish estates, also 
selling out his army commission, he came back in 1746, and for six 
years made his home at Belvoir, preparatory to his future and last 
home beyond the Blue Ridge in the Shenandoah Valley. 

William Fairfax, we are informed by a contemporary writer, lived 
at his Belvoir home in the style of an English gentleman, surrounded 
by an intelligent and cultivated family of sons and daughters. He 
died in 1757. His wife Deborah survived him but a few years. The 
ashes of both are in the neglected family burying-ground at Belvoir. 

A marble tablet, bearing the following inscription, was still intact 
over the grave of Deborah until within a few years before the war, but 
not a vestige of it now remains. 

Here rest the flmains of Deborah Clark Fairfax, who departed this 
troublesome life on the fourteenth day of , 1759, in the thirty- 
seventh year of her age. She was the daughter of Francis Clark, of 
New Salem, Massachusetts colony, and late wife of William Fairfax, 
Esqr., collector of his Majestie's customs on south Potomac, and one 
of the King's honorable council of Virginia. In every station of 
life worthy of imitation. A faithful and loving wife. The best of 
mothers. A sincere and amiable friend. In all religious duties well 
instructed and observant, and has gone where only such virtues can 
be rewarded. 

George William Fairfax, born 1724, succeeded to his father's es- 
tate. He had been educated in England, as was then the custom 
generally, with the sons of the wealthy colonists, after which he re- 
sided for some time at Belvoir. His wife was Sarah, daughter of 
Colonel William Cary, of Hampton, Virginia. In 1747 he accom- 
panied Washington over the mountains, and assisted him in his three 
years' survey of the lands of the Proprietor in the Shenandoah Val- 
ley. In 1773, accompanied by his wife, he went to England to look 
after some property he had inherited there. On his way over he 
passed the ships which brought to the colonies the ill-fated cargoes of 
tea, which were either burned or thrown overboard into the harbors of 
Boston and Annapolis. Washington consented to act as his agent in his 
absence, supposing that it would be of but short duration. But owing 
to long delays in the settlement of his business affairs, he never re- 
turned to his Virginia home. He finally directed his agent to sell 
his household furniture and the stock on the plantation, and lease the 
premises of Belvoir. A sale was accordingly held on the estate in 



2 g SOME OLD HISTORIC LANDMARKS 

1774, which continued two days, and a further sale was held in De- 
cember of the same year. The property was then leased for seven 
years to Rev. Andrew Martin, but in a short time after, the man- 
sion was destroyed by fire. The owner's Long absence, and the fact 
that the old home was desolate, together with the excitement and de- 
rangement of business incident to the war for independence, caused the 
estate to rapidly depreciate. Early in 1775 Washington relinquished 
the agency of the George William Fairfax business, as his time was fully 
taken up in directing the momentous affairs of the Revolution. 

The proprietors of Mount Vernon and Belvoir and their families 
were always on the most friendly terms, as the letters extant of each 
attest. Mr. Fairfax favored the early protests against the unjust acts 
of Great Britain and the petitions to the king in the interests of the 
colonies, but opposed measures looking to forcible resistance. 

He was for many years a member of the House of Burgesses, and 
it was on his account that during the election of 1754; when he was 
opposed by Colonel Elzy, that his friend General Washington engaged 
in the acrimonious controversy with Mr. Payne in the market-place 
of Alexandria. 

During the war which ensued, some of the property of George Fair- 
fax in Fairfax County was escheated to the State. His loss of income 
from America forced him to limit his expenses. ^He therefore re- 
moved from Yorkshire to Bath and lived in a modest way, dividing 
generously his limited means with American prisoners held in Eng- 
land. He left Belvoir and some other landed property to Ferdinando. 
third son of his half-brother, Rev. Bryan Fairfax, and died at Bath, 
England, April 3, 1787, and was buried in Wirthlington Church. 
His will appointed George Washington as one of his executors. His 
wife survived him until 1812. Bryan Fairfax, third son of William 
Fairfax, married a daughter of Wilson Cary, and his residence in 
Fairfax County was known as Towlston Hall, near Hunting Creek 
Bridge. He was a brother-in-law of Lawrence Washington, a friend 
of George Washington, and at one time was chaplain in the army by 
his appointment. Ferdinando, eighth lord, died at Mount Eagle, 
near Alexandria, in 1820, at the age of forty-six. Bryan Fairfax was 
rector of Christ Church from 1790 to 1792, and went to England in 
1793 to claim the peerage after the death of Robert, the seventh lord, 
who never lived in this country. The title was confirmed to him in 
1800. During the last years of his life he was a Swedenborgian. 
Here is his epitaph — 

IN MEMORIAM. 
Right 1I<>n. and Rev. Bryan 

I.i »RD 1- \ 1 1< I \\, 

Baron of Cameron, Rector 01 

Fairfax Parish, 

Died at M ' Eagle, Aug. 7, 

l802, AGED 75. 

Years ayo this fine estate of Belvoir with its two thousand acres of 



OF VIRGINIA AND MARYLAND. 



29 



good farming lands passed from the hands of the Fairfax family; and 
with the exception of about two hundred and fifty acres the entire 
area has lapsed back to a veritable wilderness, chiefly of pines and 
cedars, which have grown up from the ridges still everywhere to be 
seen of the old corn and tobacco crops. Once nearly every acre of 
its arable portions was under tillage, but as the impoverishing process 
of cropping without remuneration to the soil went on through the 
generations as was so often the case in old Virginia, the worn-out 
acres here and there were abandoned to the invasion of the wiry sedge 
grass and wild wood growth. The encroachments were slow but sure, 
for there were no hands to check or stay its progress. Now, this wil- 
derness is awaiting the coming of axes and hoes and ploughs which, 
in the hands of capable, industrious, and practical settlers, will reverse 
the order of nature, clear the cumbered lands, turn anew the kindly 
furrows, scatter again the seeds, gather again the harvests, and build 
up in the wastes, homes of comfort, with gardens and orchards, and 
all the surroundings which make rural life so pleasant and desirable. 
Almost within sight of the National Capital, lying on tide water, and 
near to the line of the new Electric Railway, the realization of all 
these possibilities cannot, we think, be so very remote ; and some 
lover of the picturesque and beautiful, with historic pride and ven- 
eration for the associations of the "dear, dead past beyond recall," 
which linger all around the famous locality by the ''grand old river," 
will we trust come with ample means and classic taste, and on the 
foundations of the old Fairfax home erect a structure which will 
be worthy of the superb situation and the story of its memorable 
events. 

The curious wayfarer of our time who strays by the site of the 
once stately mansion of Belvoir will find only fallen walls, blackened 
hearthstones, mounds of briar-grown bricks and rubbish to mark the 
historic spots where through so many years went on the long forgotten 
routine of domestic events and incidents of colonial life in the Fair- 
fax family successions. Of all these events and incidents which would 
be fraught with so much interest to the present generation, only the 
most fragmentary accounts have come down to us through either 
written record or word of tradition. Only here and there a canvas 
memory — some familiar names, and some wandering, vague report of 
grace and loveliness and gallant exploit. Their failings are lost sight 
of and no longer dwell in living recollection. Let them so remain, 
bright images gilded by the sunlight of the past and (lad in all their 
halo of romance — with nothing hidden by the distance but their 
human imperfections. We know that in connection with Mount 
Vernon this home of the Fairfaxes was one of the chief social centres 
of the tide-water region of the Old Dominion, with always open doors 
and a generous hospitality for the coming guest. We know that 
within its walls our Washington was an ofttimes and welcome guest. 
From Mount Vernon it was but a few minutes' sail or pull with the 
oars ; and well lie knew how to handle both. Here it was that he 
met the charming Mi>s Alary Gary, sister of Mrs. George Fairfax, 
and became conscious for the first time in his stripling years of the 



3° 



SOME OLD HISTORIC LANDMARKS 



conquering fascinations of female charms, only to be denied afterwards 
the coveted privilege of being a suitor and claimant of the hand and 
heart of the young lady by the stern and unyielding father, who failed 
to perceive in the young aspirant a prospect of that wealthy and in- 
fluential alliance which he had contemplated for his daughter. " His 
heiress," said the haughty old cavalier, " had been used to riding in 
her own chariot attended by servitors." The love-lorn youth pressed 
no more his claim after such an unexpected rebuff, and never saw her 
but once again. That was when he nodded to her pallid and fainting 
visage in a window of the old capital of Williamsburg, when he rode 
through on his triumphal march with waving banners and music -play- 
ing from the surrender of C'ornwallis at Yorktown. We know also 
that Lord Thomas Fairfax, the proprietor, the scholar and graduate 
of Oxford, and the friend of Addison, the whilom devotee of fashion 
and gayety in old London town, and the jilted and inconsolable 
lover, was for years a dweller under the same hospitable roof. We 
know, too, that in those halls were gravely talked over and considered 
by many great minds of the time various measures for the public 
weal in the infant colony preparatory to their proposal and final en- 
actment in the House of Burgesses at the vice-regal capital of Williams- 
burg. This is all of the story which has come down to us through 
the long lapse of the years. The rest of it for the most part is silent 
forever with the dust of the many actors of those times. Some of it 
may still be preserved in musty letters and other papers of old lofts 
and garrets, some time it may be to be rescued and unfolded for the 
curious listener by faithful chroniclers yet to come. But in our fond- 
ness for all such reminiscences of the olden times, we may go back in 
imagination through the dim and shadowy vistas of the past, and 
giving loose rein to fancy, let it summon up and reincarnate for us 
the many other honored guests of high degree who came and went 
from year to year over those thresholds as social or other occasions 
invited. 

Let us for a time be spectators within those old halls with their 
massive oaken doors and wide fireplaces, and their wainscoted and 
panelled walls, whereon hang fowling-pieces and antlers of the chase, 
and from which look down ancestral faces, and appear pictures of old 
castles and scenes of battle. Many shadowy forms stand out in strange 
outline before our wondering visions. We smile at their quaint cos- 
tumes and their ways of speech, but they are men and women well 
bred, with courtly manners and comely lineaments, and they please us 
well by their easy dignity and stately demeanor. They pass on and 
vanish. Another group comes up — a group of neighbors and friends 
listening intently to the " freshest advices" by the latest ship just in 
from London, Amsterdam, or Barbadoes to Alexandria or Dumfries, 
it may have been, after a voyage of weeks or months. The London 
Gazette informs them of the " wars and rumors of wars" in Europe, of 
the campaigns in Germany and India, and of the course of hostilities 
between England and France ; and precious letters are read telling of 
how all is going with friends they left behind them in the homes so far 
away over the seas. 



OF VIRGINIA AND MARYLAND. 



3 1 



The scene changes. Strains of music are floating on the air, and 
ladies fair and gay gallants bow gracefully to each other and trip gayly 
through the mazes of the minuet. Meanwhile, as the music and the 
dance go on, my Lord Thomas sits complacently in his easy arm- 
chair, attired in velvet coat, and ruff, doublet and silken hose and 
buckles. His dancing days are over, for he has passed his three- 
score milestone, and his hair is well silvered o'er, but he watches as 
intentjy the gliding figures over the oaken floor, and, mayhap, his 
thoughts are far away in halls of Yorkshire or Kent, or old London, 
when in his heyday of life he, too, had tripped as gayly with the giddy 
girl who had so cruelly won his heart and then played him false for 
another. The old baron is genial and kindly to all, and everybody 
is fond of him and graciously defers to his lineage and experience. 
He chats pleasantly with the guests, delights in their merriment, and, 
anon, in drowsy mood, goes nodding, and then passes away to the land 
of dreams. We linger still, and the scene again changes. The 
blessed Christmas tide comes round. The busy note of preparation is rife 
in parlor and kitchen. The hickory yule logs are piled and lighted, 
and their cheery and warming flames go trooping up the great stone 
chimneys into the midwinter night. The holly branches and mistletoe 
boughs are hung on the walls. Genial and convivial friends, young 
and old, come in from anear and afar, and there is "full measure of 
kindly feeling and good cheer and a jocund time for all. The bounti- 
ful board smokes as in old England's manorial homesteads with savory 
venison, wild turkey, and the wild boar's head from the surrounding 
forests. As we wait still longer in the shadows of the old mansion we 
may give still wider range to fancy, and call up to view scenes of mirth 
and rejoicing, as when joyous bridal bells were chiming ; or scenes 
of sorrow and mourning, as when funeral bells were tolling. And, 
waiting still longer with the coming and going of the years, we may 
note the passing out over the threshold of the old mansion its master 
and mistress, to take that long voyage across the ocean which was to 
separate them forever from their Virginia home. And yet a little longer 
we will wait, till the household heirlooms and treasures are sold under 
the hammer of the auctioneer and are scattered widely over the land, 
and finally, till that baleful day comes, when those storied walls go 
down in fire and crumble to dust, and there is an end to all the times 
of glad meetings and good cheer — of all the times of song and music 
and the dance and of all the kindly greetings and farewells at the 
ancient homestead of Belvoir. 

The years 
Have gone, and with them many a glorious throng 
Of happy dreams. Their mark is on each brow, 
Their shadows in each heart. In their swift course 
They waved their sceptres o'er the beautiful, 
And they are not. They laid their pallid hands 
Upon the strong man, and the haughty form 
Is fallen, and the flashing eye is dim — 
They trod the hall of revelry, where throng'd 
The bright and joyous, and the tearful wail 
Of stricken ones is heard where erst the song 
And reckless shout resounded. 



32 SOME OLD HISTORIC LANDMARKS 

These are only the picturings of fancy, and to many they may seem 
idle and vague, even foolish ; but they are picturings which some of 
us love to linger over, and are loth to let pass from our visions, for 
they touch responsive chords of our hearts and set them to rhythm and 
accord with all that belongs to those remote but cherished times ; and 
as the vistas lengthen and grow dimmer we shall but cling to them 
and love them all the more. 

Scattered over the tide-water region of Virginia are hundreds of 
such heaps of bricks and stones as those to be seen on the site of the 
old house of Belvoir we have been describing; and they arrest the at- 
tention of the thoughtful passer and tell to him mute but pathetic and 
impressive stories of the past, of rural mansions of the great Virginia 
estates where culture, refinement, and a generous hospitality abounded. 
Only a few of the typical old buildings remain for us, and these are 
passing rapidly from view, and the time is not far distant when the 
last of these landmarks of the vice-regal and revolutionary times will 
be no more. 

GREENWAY COURT. 

NOT far from the little village of Millwood, in the Shenandoah 
Valley, there stood a few years ago an ancient mansion of 
peculiar interest. It was plainly a relic of the remote past — quaint in 
style, and suggestive to the beholder of strange circumstances and 
histories. Tall locusts of a century's growth surrounded it, and waved 
their spreading branches over its steep roofs and windows. 

This ancient mansion was once the home of an English nobleman, 
who only chanced to live in Virginia, and did not directly influence in 
any considerable measure the events of the period in which he was an 
actor. And what, it may be asked, had Thomas, Lord Fairfax, Baron 
of Cameron, the sixth of the name, of Greenway Court in the Shen- 
andoah Valley, to do with the history of his era? What did he per- 
form? and why is a place demanded for him in our annals? The 
answer is not difficult. With this notable person who has passed to 
his long rest, and lies nearly forgotten in the old church at Winchester, 
is connected a name which will never be forgotten. His was the high 
mission to shape in no small measure the immense strength of George 
Washington. His hand pointed attention to the rising planet of this 
great life, and opened its career toward the zenith — the planet which 
shines now the polar star of our liberties, set in the stormy skies of the 
Revolution. The brilliance of that star no man can now increase nor 
obscure, as no cloud can dim it, — and yet, once it was unknown, and 
needed assistance, which Lord Fairfax afforded. 

Any account of the youth of Washington must involve no small 
reference to the old fox-hunting Baron who took an especial fancy for 
him when he was a boy of sixteen, and greatly aided in developing 
his capabilities and character. Fairfax not only thus shaped by his 
counsels the unfolding mind of the young man, but placed the future 
leader of the American Revolution in that course of training which 
hardened his muscles, toughened his manhood, taught him self-reliance, 
and gave him that military repute in the public eye, which secured 






3. z 




OF VIRGINIA AND MARYLAND. 



33 



for him at a comparatively early age the appointment of commander- 
in-chief of the Continental armies over all competitors. First and 
last, Fairfax was the fast and continuing friend of Washington, and 
not even the struggle for independence, in which they espoused oppo- 
site sides, operated to weaken this regard. In imagination let us 
look at this old house in which Lord Thomas passed about thirty years 
of his bachelor life. It stands before us on a green knoll, — solitary, 
almost, in the great wilderness, and all its surroundings impress us 
with ideas of pioneer life and habits. It is a long, low building, con- 
structed of the limestone of the region. A row of dormer windows 
stands prominently out from its steep over-hanging roof, and massive 
chimneys of stone appear outside of its gables which are studded 
with coops around which swarm swallows and martins. From the 
ridge of the roof rise two belfries or lookouts, constructed probably 
by the original owner to give the alarm in case of an invasion by the 
savages. Not many paces from the old mansion was a small log house 
in which the eccentric proprietor slept, surrounded by his dogs, of 
which he was passionately fond ; the large edifice having been assigned 
to his steward. A small cabin of stone near the north end of the house 
was his office; and in this he transacted all the business of his vast 
possessions, giving quit-rents, signing deeds, and holding audiences to 
adjust claims and boundary lines. Scattered over the knoll were the 
quarters for his many servants. And here in the midst of dogs and 
horses, backwoodsmen, Indians, half-breeds, and squatters, who feasted 
daily at his plentiful board, the fine gentleman of Pall Mall, the friend 
of Joseph Addison, passed more than a quarter of a century. He lived 
in this frontier locality the life of a recluse. He had brought with him 
an ample library of books, and these were welcome companionship for 
him in his solitary hours.* Ten thousand acres of land around his un- 
pretentious lodge he had allotted for a manorial estate, with the design 
at some time of erecting upon it a castle for a residence ; this design 
he never executed. 

At the age of twenty-five, Lord Fairfax was one of the gayest of the 
young men of London society. He went the rounds of dissipation 
with the fondest enjoyment, and was considered one of the finest 
beaux of his day. He was well received by all classes. Young noble- 
men, dissipating rapidly their patrimonial substance, found in him a 
congenial companion in their intrigues and revels. Countesses per- 
mitted him to kiss their jewelled hands ; and when he made his bow 
in their drawing-rooms, received him with their most patronizing 
smiles. But our young lord after a time found himself arrested in his 
gay round of pleasures in the haunts of silk stockings and hooped 
petticoats. He had revolved like a gayly-colored moth about many 
beautiful luminaries without singeing his wings. But his hour of fate 
came. One of the beauties of the time transfixed him. He circled 
in closer and closer gyrations. His pinions were caught in the blaze, 
and he was a hopeless captive. My Lord Fairfax no longer engaged 
in revels or the rounds of dissipation, but like a sensible lover ac- 
cepted the new conditions, and sought only to make everything ready 
for a life of real happiness in the nuptials of two loving "and con- 

3 



34 



SOME OLD HISTORIC LANDMARKS 



fiding hearts. He turned resolutely from the frivolous past and looked 
only to the promising future, which he saw as if unfolding something 
higher and more substantial for his achievement and enjoyment, and 
then the real sweetness and depth of his truer nature revealed them- 
selves from beneath the wrappings of dissipation and vice. He gave 
up everything which had pleased him for this woman ; and all that he 
now asked was permission to take his affianced away from the danger- 
ous atmosphere of the court, and to live with her peacefully as a good 
nobleman of the provinces. He loved her passionately, and wished" 1, 
to discard all who threatened to interfere with the exclusive enjoyment 
of her society. All his resources were taxed to supply the most splen- 
did marriage gifts; and absorbed in this delightful dream of love, his 
happiness was raised to the empyrean. But he was destined to have 
a sudden awakening from his dream, a terrible, almost fatal fall from 
his cloudland. He had expended the wealth of his deep and earnest 
nature on a coquette, — his goddess was a woman simply, — and a very 
shallow one. She threw Fairfax carelessly overboard, and married a 
nobleman who won her by the superior attractions of a ducal coronet. 
Thus struck doubly in his pride and his love, Fairfax looked around 
him in despair for some retreat to which he might fly and forget in a 
measure his sorrows. London was hateful to him, the country no less 
distasteful. He could not again plunge into the mad whirl of the 
one, nor rust away in the dull routine of the other. His griefs de- 
manded action to dissipate them, — adventure, new scenes, another 
land were needed. This process of reflection turned the young man's 
thoughts to the lands in far away Virginia which lie held in right of 
his mother, the daughter of Ford Culpeper, to whom they had 
originally been granted ; and finally he bade adieu to England and 
came over the seas. Suth were the events in the early life of this 
gentleman which brought him to Virginia. 

The house of Belvoir to which Ford Fairfax came was the resident e, 
as has already been stated, of Sir William Fairfax, his cousin, to 
whom he had entrusted the management of his Virginia lands. Law- 
rence Washington, the eldest brother of George, had married a 
daughter of Sir William ; and here commences the connection of the 
already aged proprietor and the boy of sixteen who was to lead the 
armies of the Revolution. Washington was a frequent inmate of the 
Belvoir home ; and the boy was the chosen companion of the old lord 
in his hunting expeditions. In the reckless sports of the field the 
proprietor seemed to find the chief solace for his love-lorn griefs. 
Time slowly dissipated his despairing recollections, however, and now, 
as he approached the middle of that century the dawn of which had 
witnessed so much of his misery, the softer traits of his character re- 
turned, and he was to those for whom he felt regard a most delightful 
and instructive companion. Almost every trace of personal attrac- 
tion, though, had left him. Upwards of six feet in stature, gaunt, 
raw-boned, near-sighted, with light gray eyes, and a sharp aquiline 
nose, he was scarcely recognizable as the elegant young nobleman of 
the days of Queen Anne. But time and reflection had mellowed his 
mind, and when he pleased, the old gentleman could enchain his 



OF VIRGINIA AND MARYL iND. 



35 



hearers with brilliant conversation of which his early training and 
experiences had given him very great command. He had seen all the 
great characters of the period of his youth, had watched the unfold- 
ing of events, and studied their causes. All the social history, the 
scandalous chronicles, the private details of celebrated personages 
had been familiar to him ; and his conversation thus presented a 
glowing picture of the past. Something of cynical wit still clung to 
him, and the fireside of Belvoir was the scene of much satiric com- 
ments between the old nobleman and his cousin William. But Fairfax 
preserved great fondness for youth, and took especial pleasure in the 
society of our George of* Mount Vernon. He not only took him as 
a companion in his hunts, but liked to have the boy with him when 
he walked out ; and it may be easily understood that the talks of the 
exile had a deep effect upon young Washington. 

The import of Lord Fairfax's connection with the future com- 
mander-in-chief lies chiefly in the commission which he intrusted to 
the boy of seventeen, that of surveying and laying put his vast pos- 
session, in the Shenandoah Valley. Providence here as everywhere 
seemed to have directed the movements of man to work out its own 
special ends. This employment as surveyor on the wilderness frontiers 
was the turning-point in the young man's life, and the results of the 
expedition of three years in its influences on his habits and character, 
the information and self-reliance it gave him, and the hardships it taught 
him to endure are now the property of history. 

It is not a part of our design to follow the young surveyor in his 
expedition which led him from Greenway Court to the headwaters of 
the Potomac where Cumberland now stands, and thence into the 
wilderness of the "Great South Branch," a country as wholly un- 
known as it was fertile and magnificent. He returned to Mount 
Vernon a new being, and the broad foundation of his character was 
laid. 

The first act of his eventful life had been played — the early lessons 
of training and endurance thoroughly learned — the scene of his sub- 
sequent exertions fixed ; and the prudence, courage, coolness, and 
determination which he displayed on this arena, made him general in 
chief when the crisis came, of the forces of the Revolutionary struggle. 
Lord Fairfax had given him the impetus. From him he received the 
direction of his genius, and to the attentive student of these early 
events the conviction becomes more and more absolute that Lord 
Fairfax was the great "influence" of his life. And the interest 
attaching to the career of this noble patron consists chiefly in his con- 
nection with the life of the rising hero. Having formed as we have 
seen in no small measure the character of the boy of seventeen he 
lived to receive the tidings that this boy had overthrown forever the 
dominion of Great Britain in America on the field of Yorktown. 
So had Providence decreed ; and the gray-haired baron doubtless felt 
that he was only the humble instrument in that all powerful Hand. 

After Yorktown — after the supreme defeat of the proud English 
general by the lad whom he had trained, it was " time for him to die." 

His death took place in 1781, at the age of ninety-three, and his 



36 SOME OLD HISTORIC LANDMARKS 

bod) lies buried in the old Episcopal churchyard at Winchester, Va. 
His barony and its prerogatives according to English law descended 
in the absence of a son to his eldest brother Robert, who thus became 
seventh Lord Fairfax. The latter died in Leed's Castle, England, 
1791, without a son. The baronial title then fell to Rev. Bryan 
Fairfax, son of William and brother-in-law of Lawrence Washington. 
His place was Towlston Hall, Mount Eagle, on Hunting Creek, Fair- 
fax County, Va. He died in 1802. 

The estate of Green way Court of ten thousand acres descended to 
relatives of the proprietor in England. The lodge or mansion, like 
that of Belvoir on the Potomac, went down in fire. 

WOOD LAWN MANSION, THE HOME OF NELLY 

CUSTIS. 

ONE of the most beautiful young women of her time was Eleanor 
Parke Custis, a granddaughter of Martha Washington and an 
adopted daughter of General Washington. Her portrait, painted by 
Gilbert Stuart, was the most attractive picture among the rare paintings 
at Arlington House, the residence of her brother, George W. Parke 
Custis, for about fifty years. It is the likeness of a maiden when about 
eighteen years of age, the admired of all who attended the republican 
court during the last year of Washington's administration. 

She is dressed in a plain white garment, in the scant fashion of the 
day, one of her plump, bare arms forming a conspicuous feature of 
the picture, her chin resting upon a finger of her gently closed hand. 
Her sweet face, regular in every feature, is garnished by her dark curls, 
tastefully clustering around her forehead and temples, while her long 
hair, gathered in an apparently careless manner on the top of her 
head, is secured by a cluster of white flowers. The whole picture is 
modest, simple, beautiful. 

" Nelly Custis," as she was called in her maidenhood, was as witty as 
she was beautiful ; epiick at repartee, highly accomplished, full of infor- 
mation, a good conversationalist, the life of any company whether young 
or old and was greatly beloved by her foster-father, the great patriot. 
\\ hen in June, 1775, Washington was appointed Commander-in-Chief 
of the Continental Army, he placed John Parke Custis, the father of 
"Nelly," on his staff, in which capacity he served during most of the 
long war that followed. He was aide to Washington at the siege of 
Yorktown in the autumn of 17S1, and was then a member of the 
Virginia Assembly, but dying that year of fever, his children, George 
W. Parke Custis and Eleanor Parke Custis, were left orphans, the for- 
mer nearly three years old and the latter only six months old, and be- 
came the adopted children of Washington. 

Washington had a favorite nephew, Lawrence, a son of his sister 
Betty Lewis. He was much at Mount Vernon after Washington's re- 
tirement from the presidency, and the " blessing" of a "good hus- 
band" for Nelly when she would " want and deserve one" was bestowed 
upon her. She and Lawrence Lewis were married February 22, 1799. 
Many suitors had sought her hand, to be denied for the one whom her 



$ 



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' f>^ : %m 



OF VIRGINIA AND MARYLAND. 



37 



grandfather had chosen and preferred for her over all others. About 
a month before the happy event the patriot wrote to his nephew, say- 
ing, " Your letter of January ioth I received in Alexandria on Monday, 
whither I went to become the guardian of Nelly, thereby to authorize 
a license for your nuptials on the 2 2d of next month." The wedding 
took place on the last anniversary of his birthday that Washington 
spent on earth. Great preparations had been made for the event. The 
mansion was decked with flowers and evergreens, and ample provision 
made for a time of festivity and good cheer; and the gentlefolk of 
the surrounding country invited. There were assembled for the occa- 
sion the Dandridges, Custises, Calverts, Lees, Lewises, Corbins, Bush- 
rods, Blackburns, Masons, Carrolls, and many others. The ceremony 
was performed in the great drawing-room lighted by many waxen 
•tapers, which brought out in strong relief the silent portraits on the 
walls, in curious contrast with the merry throng below them. The 
stately minuet was danced and the spirited Virginia reel. Low 
voices whispered tender words in hall and anterooms, and the house 
soon to be so silent and mournful, echoed with mirth and hilarity. It 
was a brilliant scene. The picturesque costumes of the colonial days 
were still in vogue, — rich fabrics, and richer colors, stomachers, and 
short clothes, jewelled buckles and brooches, powder and ruffles every- 
where. Mount Vernon never witnessed such a scene again. Ten 
months later, in the same long drawing-room so lately the scene of these 
bridal festivities, the body of the great chief lay on its sable bier. 

By a provision of the last will and testament of George Washing- 
ton, made July 9, 1799, "all that tract of land" in the county of 
Fairfax, and a portion of the Mount Vernon estate "north of the 
road leading from the ford of Dogue Run to the gum spring as de- 
scribed in the devise of the other part of the tract to Bushrod Wash- 
ington until it comes to the stone and three red or Spanish oaks on 
the knowl — thence with the rectangular line to the back line, between 
Mr. Mason and me — thence with that line westerly along the new 
double ditch to Dogue Run by the tumbling dam of my mill — thence 
with the said run to the ford aforementioned, to which I add all the 
land I possess west of said Dogue Creek, bounded easterly and south- 
erly thereby — together with the Mill and Distillery, and all other 
houses and improvements on the premises, making together about two 
thousand acres," was devised as a dower to the aforesaid Major Lewis 
and Nelly his wife. On this patrimonial estate these favored subjects 
of the general's solicitude erected in 1805 a commodious dwelling, — 
much more pretentious than that of Mount Vernon, — and began the 
establishment of their new home. Nelly was then just twenty-five 
years of age. It had been six years since she followed the remains 
of her honored grandfather to their last earthly resting-place, and 
Martha, her grandmother, had only three years before been laid by 
his side. They built their dwelling-place three miles inland from 
Mount Vernon, but on a high elevation, so that it commanded a 
pleasant view of the river and the expanse of Dogue Bay and its wide 
stretching valley. 

Under the roof of Wood Lawn, as at Mount Vernon, was ever dis- 



38 SOME OLD HISTORIC LANDMARKS 

pensed a generous hospitality, and many were the distinguished vis- 
itors of the time from near and afar, who came to cross its threshold 
and pay their regards to its well-beloved and accomplished matron. 

Lafayette, on his second visit to the land he had so valiantly helped 
to defend, came here in 1824 to renew his fondly-cherished acquaint- 
ance with Nelly, the stately house-wife, who was but a child when he 
had seen her before in the home of his old commander, and had taken 
her in her laughing moods upon his knee and kissed her with a 
parental fondness, remembering doubtless the dear ones of his own 
household in la belle France. For nearly forty years Nelly was mis- 
tress of the Wood Lawn mansion, and here were born to her four chil- 
dren, — Agnes the eldest, dying at school in Philadelphia ; Frances 
Parke, who married General E. G. W. Butler, and died at Pass Chris- 
tian, Mississippi, a few years ago ; Lorenzo, and Eleanor Angela, who 
married Hon. C. M. Conrad, of Louisiana, and died in New Orleans 
many years ago. Major Lawrence Lewis died at Arlington, Novem- 
ber 20, 1S39, and one summer day, July 15, 1852, Mrs. Nelly, his wife, 
followed him full of years and honors to the burial vault at Mount 
Vernon. She had passed one year beyond the threescore and ten line. 
To the watcher from farmhouse and village, that must have seemed a 
lonely and mournful funeral procession, indeed, as it slowly wended 
its course down the long Virginia highway from the Shenandoah to 
the Potomac. The hearse containing the remains of the aged grand- 
mother, and a* solitary carriage accompanying, with the two surviving 
grandsons, one of whom is still living to tell of the impressive cir- 
cumstances of the event. Late at night their journey was finished, 
and the cofhned form of Nelly was placed in the parlor of Mount Ver- 
non, where, more than fifty years before, crowned with bridal wreaths, 
" the fairest lady of the land," Washington himself had affectionately 
given her in marriage, and commended her to the love and pro- 
tecting care of the one favored claimant of his choice, and where she 
had received the congratulations and blessings of so many of her 
kinsfolk and friends. Many of the citizens of Alexandria and Wash- 
ington and the surrounding country came to pay their tributes of fond 
remembrance and regard to " Nelly" as she lay in state in the 
'• mansion," and to see the last of "earth to earth." Down in the 
family burial-place, just by the waters of the river on whose pleasant 
banks she had passed so many happy days in childhood and youth, her 
dust is very near to that of her kind and loving guardians. A 
marble monument marks her last resting-place with the following in- 
scription : 

Sacred 

to the memory of Eleanor Parke Custis, granddaughter of Mrs. Wash- 
ington, and adopted daughter of General Washington. Reared under 
the roof of the Father of his Country, this lady was not more remark- 
able for the beauty of her person than for the superiority of her mind. 
She lived to be admired, and died to be regretted, July 15, 1S52, in 
the seventy-first year of her age. 

On last Decoration Day the writer esteemed it a great pleasure to 




I'..-. ■: 



NELLY CUSTIS, 
At eighteen. 



OF VIRGINIA AND MARYLAND. 



39 



strew her apparently neglected grave with flowers. Even in her last 
closing years, Nelly retained many traces of her early beauty and 
vivacity. 

We have been told by her surviving grandson that the early home 
life and associations of Mount Vernon lingered ever with his grand- 
mother as beatifying visions, and that she never wearied in recount- 
ing them to her children and grandchildren. A theme dearest of all 
to her heart was the story of her social relations with the fond and 
indulgent master and mistress of the Mount Vernon home whose 
passing away from her she long and deeply mourned. 

"All who knew the subject of our sketch," says her aunt, Mrs. 
General Robert E. Eee, in her memoir of George W. Parke Custis, 
" were wont to recall the pleasure they had derived from her extensive 
information, brilliant wit, and boundless generosity. The most tender 
parent and devoted friend, she lived in the enjoyment of her affections. 
She was often urged to write her memoirs, which might even have 
surpassed in interest to her countrymen those of Madame de Sevigne 
and others of equal note, as her pen gave free expression to her lively 
imagination and clear memory. Would that we could recall the many 
tales of the past we have heard from her lips, but, alas ! we should fail 
to give them accurately. One narrative is retained, as it made a 
strong impression at the time. She said the most perfect harmony 
always existed ' between her grandmamma and the general,' and 
that in all his intercourse with her he was most considerate and tender. 
She had often seen her when she had something to communicate, or a 
request to make of him at a moment when his mind was entirely ab- 
stracted from the present, seize him by the button to command his 
attention, when he would look down upon her with a benignant smile 
and become at once attentive to her wishes, which were never slighted. 
She also said that the grave dignity which he usually wore did not 
prevent his keen enjoyment of a joke, and that no one laughed more 
heartily than did he when she herself, a gay, laughing girl, gave one 
of her saucy descriptions of any scene in which she had taken part, 
or any one of the merry pranks she then often played ; and that he 
would retire from the room in which her young companions were 
amusing themselves, because his presence caused a reserve which they 
could not overcome. But he always regretted it exceedingly, as their 
sports and enjoyments always seemed to interest him." 

Of course, Washington was always Nelly's ideal hero, and the 
grandest of all the line of noble men. 

General Zachary Taylor was one of her favorites among the public 
men of her time, and when he was elected to the presidency, she paid 
him a visit, and was for some time an honored guest in the White 
House, where she received the marked attentions of many distinguished 
personages of that day. While she lived she did not lose the hold she 
had in all her younger years upon the popular regard. She was still 
the storied, picturesque " Nelly" who had been the fondly petted child 
in the household of him who was " first in peace, first in war, and first 
in the hearts of his countrymen." 

When that fair, smooth brow of the great artist's picture had been 



40 



SOME OLD HISTORIC LANDMARKS 



imprinted with the lines of threescore years, and those clustering 
curls had changed their brown to threads of snow, how she must have 
seemed like some saintly messenger to those who eagerly listened to 
her as she brought from memory's far-away shore the historic scenes 
which had passed before those sparkling eyes in the heyday of her 
youthful life. Lorenzo, her only son, inherited the Wood Lawn 
estate, and resided for some years in the mansion. He was married 
to Esther Maria Coxe, of Philadelphia, in 1827, and died in 1847. 
His widow survived him until 1885. Of the six children of Lorenzo, 
only one is left, J. R. C. Lewis, of Berryville, Clarke County, Virginia. 
In 1845, the entire domain of this estate, having been almost entirely 
neglected through many years, presented a most forlorn appearance. 
Only here and there a patch of ground was under cultivation, — not a 
handful of grass-seed was sown, not a ton of hay cut. The fields were 
overgrown with sedge, brambles, sassafras, and cedars, and all traces of 
fencing had disappeared. Not a white man was living on an acre of it. 
Only a few superannuated slaves remained in some rickety cabins, 
and these were subsisting on products from a farm in another county. 
The tax assessment was thirty dollars -one cent and a half an acre, 
although the buildings alone had cost near fifty thousand dollars, just 
forty-three years before. It was at this period that the New Jersey 
colony purchased the property for $12.50 per acre, and subsequently 
the whole tract was divided and subdivided into small farms, and oc- 
cupied by improving proprietors. The mansion, substantially con- 
structed of old-fashioned bricks, having a main building sixty by 
forty feet, with wide halls, spacious apartments, and ample wings 
united by corridors to the main portion, together with sixty acres 
of land, was recently purchased by the Electric Railway Company, 
who propose in the near future to make it the lower terminus of their 
road, in which event the "Old Mansion" will be faithfully restored 
to its original beauty, and thenceforth be kept as an enduring memo- 
rial of its first mistress, the beloved foster-daughter of George Wash- 
ington. No more fitting place, we think, than this could be chosen 
by the associations of the sons and daughters of the "Revolution" 
for the holding of their annual reunions, and the keeping of their 
archives and historic mementos and relics. That would make it a 
desirable ami attractive place of pilgrimage in all coming years, and 
most effectually secure its perpetual preservation. 



WASHINGTON'S MILL. 

AT the head of Dogue Creek Kay are the ruins of the old stone 
mill which in Washington's time ground all the grist of the 
grain products of the Mount Vernon estate. The plash of the waters 
over its wheel, and the clatter and din of its grinding gear have been 
silent for threescore years. The raceway which led the waters from 
the pond far up the valley across the fields to turn the wheel are now 
grazing grounds for cattle; but the shaky tenement stood until the 
beginning of the fifties. The stones of the fallen walls have been 




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("At three-score-and-ten. 



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OF VIRGINIA AND MARYLAND. 41 

carted away and used in the foundations of houses in the neighbor- 
hood. All the meal for the plantation hands over the eight thousand 
acres was ground by this mill, and cargoes of flour were made by it 
and shipped to the West Indies and other places in schooners, which 
then came in the deeper waters, to load at its very doors. The picture 
as given is not an ideal of the old structure, but a truthful representa- 
tion of it. 

The locality of this old mill, once known as Epseewasson, acquires 
additional interest from the very plausible supposition that here at the 
head of Dogue Bay, so named from an Indian tribe inhabiting its 
borders, was begun the first settlement and clearing of the "Hunting 
Creek" plantation of two thousand five hundred acres which about 
the year 1670 was assigned to John Washington, great-grandfather 
of the illustrious George Washington, as his share of a joint patent 
from Lord Culpeper. 

This John Washington died in January, 1677. In his will he left 
this plantation to his son Lawrence, who had made some improve- 
ments on it, and at his death bequeathed it to his son Augustine, the 
father of the general. Augustine further improved and cultivated the 
plantation aforesaid, and in the division of his estate left it by will 
to his eldest son by his first marriage, Major Lawrence Washington 
and half-brother of George, who married Annie, oldest daughter of 
William Fairfax of Belvoir. 

The mill was built by Washington's father, and in the old house, as 
shown near to it, he and Mary the mother may have been domiciled 
while for four years they were living on the Hunting Creek plantation. 
The youthful George was then under ten years of age. The family 
removed from the locality to Fredericksburg in 1739 or I 74°- Seven 
years later, at the close of his school-days, George returned to live with 
his elder brother Lawrence, who had built for himself the middle or 
main portion of the present Mount Vernon house. 



WASHINGTON'S SERVANTS. 

JUST before the war it was not uncommon to read in the newspapers 
the announcement of the death of "another of Washington's Ser- 
vants. ' ' Then almost every octogenarian darkey in ' ' Old Fawfax' ' 
claimed to have belonged to "Mars Joge," and could tell wonderful 
stories of old times at Mount Vernon. But of late no mention has 
been made of these worthies. All of them have passed over the 
borders and joined the ranks of the plantation armies beyond. In 
this connection we cannot refrain from giving to the reader the ballad 
of "Thornton Gray," one of " de old sarvants" whom the writer 
once interviewed, and who was reputed to have been an offshoot of 
African royalty. 

He was an ancient colored man, 

I lis age one hundred ten ; 
lie hailed from old Virginy, 

And once a slave had been. 



42 SOME OLD HISTORIC LANDMARKS 

His hair was thin and silver'd, 
His brow with furrows set, 

Features fine cut and moulded, 
And face as black as jet. 

In olden times, the story ran. 
That kings and Doblemen, 

In Afric's sultry climate, 
Hi~ forefathers had been; 

And as I gazed upon him. 

And closely scann'd his mien, 

It seemed a trace of royalty 
Full well might yet be seen. 

He bow'd him low and tip'd his hat, 

And laid aside his hoe, 
The while I briefly interview M 

About the long ago. 

•• My name is Thornton Gray," he said ; 

" Dey calls me ' Uncle Thorn,' 
Lived mos'ly in Old Fairfax, 

In YVes'mo'land was born. 

'• Was ris by Mars' Wilkers'n, 
< heat farmer, may depend ; 

' hvn'd all de big plantation 
Dey call'd de ' River Bend.' 

" Made heaps of fine tabacca, 
Had stores of corn and wheat ; 

Hard labor, mind you ; but de han's 
Had plenty den to eat. 

" Times ain't de same as den dey was, 
'Pears like dey's chang'd all round, 

De folks dat lived when I was young, 
All dead and under ground. 

" 'Taint long I knows for me to stay, 

There after all de res' ; 
I only waits de Lord's good time, 

Sho'ly he knows de bes'. 

" I soon shall yhear de trumpeter 
Blow on his trumpet horn, 

An' call me home to glory, 
An' de riserickshum morn."' 



My good freed man. to him I said, 
Of age, one hundred ten, 

You might relate much history 
< )f former times and men. 



I wait to hear the story, 

W Inch none can tell but you, 

For none have lived fivescore of years 
And ten more added to. 







* - ;/i^' - — 



THORNTON GRAY, ONE OF WASHINGTON'S " SARVENTS." 



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OF VIRGINIA AXD MARYLAND. 43 

You must have seen the Britishers, 

And heard the cannons roar; 
" Why, bless you, chil', was mos' a man, 

And heard and seen de war." 

And Washington, you must have seen, 

That great and good hero 
Who led the lontinentalers, 

And fought our battles through ! 

" Why surely I has seen him, 

And know'd him well; for, boss, 
I was de (Mineral's sarvant, 

Took care de Gineral's hoss ! 

" Fine man he was for sartin, 

Good friend to all de poor — 
Dar's none in dese days like him, 

And none, folks said, before." 

Enough, I said ! I'm well repaid ; 

And grasped his trembling hand — 
No honor hath a man like this, 

In all our glorious land ! 

No further did I question him 

About the long ago, 
And when I said to him good-bye. 

He took his garden hoe. 

Who hath beheld our Washington, 

And lived to tell us so, 
Deserves as well a story 

As many others do. 

And hence our homely ballad, 

A tribute slight to pay 
To this departed colored man, 

And ancient — Thornton Gray. 



OLD POHICK CHURCH. 

FIVE miles below the Mount Vernon mansion, and three miles 
from the Potomac, stands the old Pohick Church edifice, erected 
in the year 1772. It was built from plans furnished by Washington, 
who was a member of its vestry, and a frequent attendant at its ser- 
vices. The eccentric Mason L. Weems, author of a life of Washing- 
ton, and also a life of Marion, and who was as ready to tune a fiddle 
as to preach a sermon, was one of its rectors before 1800. The picture 
represents an old-time congregation after service. 



44 SOME OLD HISTORIC LANDMARKS 

THE PASSING AWAY OF WASHINGTON. 

" I low sleep the brave who sink to rest 
With all their country's honors blest." 

THERE came to Mount Vernon a bleak, forbidding winter day, 
December 13, 1799. Washington was engaged in planning and 
superintending some improvements on his estate which occupied his 
presence till a late hour in the evening, when, on returning to the 
mansion, he complained of cold and a sore throat, having been wet 
through by mists and chilling rain. He passed the night with 
feverish excitement, and his ailment increased in intensity during 
the next day and until midnight, when, surrounded by his sorrowing 
household and the medical attendant, he passed gently and serenely 
from the scenes of earth to the realities of the great unknown. He 
was in the sixty-eighth year of his age. His faculties were strong and 
unimpaired to the last. He was conscious from the first of his malady, 
that his end was near, and he awaited the issue with great composure 
and self-possession. " I am going," he observed to those around him. 
"But I have no fears." His mission had been well and nobly 
accomplished. His great life-work, whose influences will reach to the 
remotest periods of time, was accomplished. 

At the supreme moment Mrs. Washington sat in silent grief at his 
bedside. "Is he gone?" she asked in a firm and collected voice. 
The physician, unable to speak, gave a silent signal of assent. " 'Tis 
well," she added in the same untremulous utterance; "all is over 
now. I shall soon follow him ; I have no more trials to pass through. ' ' 
She followed three years later. They both rest side by side in the new 
burial vault at the old homestead by the river. 

The following quaint announcements of Washington's death from 
the newspapers of this locality will be of interest : 

The Georgetown Ccntinel of Liberty, a semi-weekly, in its issue of 
December 17, 1799, tnus announces Washington's death: " It is our 
painful duty first to announce to the country and the world the death 
of General George Washington. This mournful event occurred on 
Saturday evening about eleven o'clock. On the preceding night he was 
attacked with a violent inflammatory affection of the throat, which in 
less than twenty-four hours put a period to his life. If a long life 
devoted to the most important public services ; if the most eminent 
usefulness, true greatness", and consummate glory; if being an honor 
to our race and a model to future ages ; if all these could rationally 
suppress our grief, never perhaps ought we to mourn so little. But as 
they are the most powerful motives to gratitude, attachment, and ven- 
eration for the living and of sorrow at their departure, never ought 
America and the world to mourn more than on this melancholy 
occasion." 

The Alexandria Times and District of Columbia Advertiser, of 
Eriday, December 20, 1799, of which one-half sheet is all that is 
known to be in existence, thus announced Washington's death and 
funeral : " The effect of the sudden news of his death upon the inhabi- 



OF VIRGINIA AND MARYLAND. 4S 

tants of Alexandria can better be conceived than expressed. At first 
a general disorder, wildness, and consternation pervaded the town. 
The tale appeared as an illusory dream, as the raving of a sickly imagi- 
nation. But these impressions soon gave place to sensations of the 
most poignant sorrow and extreme regret. On Monday and Wednes- 
day the stores were all closed and all business suspended, as if each 
family had lost its father. From the time of his death to the time of 
his interment the bells continued to toll, the shipping in the harbor 
wore their colors half-mast high, and every public expression of grief 
was observed. On Wednesday, the inhabitants of the town, of the 
county, and the adjacent parts of Maryland proceeded to Mount 
Vernon to perform the last offices to the body of their illustrious 
neighbor. All the military within a considerable distance and three 
Masonic lodges were present. The concourse of people was immense. 
Till the time of interment the corpse was placed on the portico front- 
ing the river, that every citizen might have an opportunity of taking 
a last farewell of the departed benefactor." 

WASHINGTON'S BIRTHDAY AND BIRTHNIGHT 
BALL. — February 22, 1732. 

What day is this of proud acclaim, 

Of rolling drum and trumpet strain, 
And banners floating on the breeze, 

And cannon booming loud again ? 

A people come with grateful praise, 

And hearts in unison, 
As well befits to celebrate 

The birth of Washington ! 

From East and West and North and South, 

Throughout our broad domain, 
The plaudits of a nation swell 

O'er mountain, hill, and plain. 

Not for ambition's selfish deeds — 

Not for the conq'ror's name, 
This day the glorious meed is given, 

But for the nobler fame, 

By man world wide accorded 

And grander grown by time — 
The fame that comes of duty 

And life of deeds sublime. 

AT the close of the Revolution commenced the birthday celebra- 
tions and birthnight balls in honor of the successful chief. 
They soon became general all over the republic. The first of these 
was held in Alexandria. 

In the large cities where public balls were customary, the birthnight 
ball in the olden time was the gala assembly of the season, and was 
attended by an array of fashion and beauty. 

The first President always attended on the birthnight. The eti- 
quette was not to open the festivities until the arrival of him in whose 



46 SOME OLD HISTORIC LANDMARKS 

honor it was given ; but so remarkable was the punctuality of Wash- 
ington in all his engagements, whether for business or pleasure, that 
he was never waited for a moment in appointments for either. 

The minuet, now obsolete, for the graceful and elegant dancing of 
which Washington was conspicuous, in the vice-regal days of Lord 
Botetort in Virginia, declined after the Revolution. The commander- 
in-chief danced for his last time a minuet in 1781 at the ball given in 
Fredericksburg in honor of the French and American officers on their 
return from the triumphs of Yorktown. The last birthnight he 
attended was in Alexandria, February 22, 1798. He always appeared 
to enjoy the gay and festive scenes of those occasion, remaining till a 
late hour with the participants, his neighbors and friends ; for, re- 
markable as he was for reserve, and the dignified gravity inseparable 
from his nature, he ever looked with most kind and favoring eye upon 
the rational and elegant pleasures of life. 

WASHINGTON'S HABITS, MANNERS, AND AP- 
PEARANCE. 

THF work which Washington accomplished in the course of his 
public and private duties was simply immense. And when we 
estimate the volume of his official papers, — his vast foreign, public, 
and private correspondence, — we can scarcely believe that the space of 
one man's life could have comprehended the performance of so many 
varied things. But he brought order, method, and rigid system -to 
help him. These accessories he relied on, and they led him success- 
fully through. He rose early. His toilet was soon made. A single 
servant prepared his clothes and laid them in readiness. He shaved 
and dressed himself, but gave very little of his precious time to mat- 
ters of that sort, though remarkable for the neatness and propriety of 
his apparel. His clothes were made after the old-fashioned cut, of 
the best though of the plainest materials. The style of his household 
and equipage when President corresponded with the dignity of his 
exalted station. About sunrise he invariably visited and inspected his 
stables. Then he betook himself to his library till the hour of break- 
fast. This meal was plain and simple, and with but little change, 
from time to time. Indian cakes, honey, and tea formed this tem- 
perate repast. On rising from the table, if there were guests, and it 
was seldom otherwise, books and papers were offered for their amuse- 
ments, and requesting them to take care of themselves the illustrious 
farmer proceeded to his daily tour over his farms. He rode over them 
unattended, opening the gates, letting down and putting up bars as 
he visited his laborers, and inspected their operations. He was a 
progressive farmer and introduced many new methods in the tillage of 
his lands. His afternoon was usually devoted to his library- At night 
his labors over, he would join his family and friends at the tea-table 
and enjoy their society for several hours, and about nine o'clock 
retired to bed. When without company he Frequently read aloud to 
his family circle from newspapers and entertaining books. 

Washington liked the cheerful converse of the social board. After 



OF VIRGINIA AND MARYLAND. 



47 



his retirement from public life, all the time he could spare from his 
library was devoted to the improvement of his estate and the elegant 
and tasteful arrangement of his house and grounds. The awe that 
was felt by every one upon the first approach to Washington evidences 
the imposing power and sublimity which belongs to real greatness. 
Even the frequenters of the courts of princes were sensible of this 
exalted feeling when in the presence of the hero, who, formed for the 
highest destinies, bore an impress from nature which declared him to 
be one among the noblest of her worVs. 

Washington at the age of forty-three was appointed commander-in- 
chief. In stature he a little exceeded six feet ; his limbs were sinewy 
and well-proportioned ; his chest broad ; his figure stately, blending 
dignity of presence with ease. His robust constitution had been 
tried and invigorated by his early life in the wilderness, his habit of 
occupation out-of-doors, and his rigid temperance ; so that few equalled 
him in strength of arm or power of endurance. His complexion was 
florid ; his hair dark brown ; his head in its shape perfectly round. 
His broad nostrils seemed formed to give expression and escape to 
scornful anger. His dark blue eyes, which were deeply set, had an 
expression of resignation, and an earnestness that was almost sadness. 

THE FIRST CELEBRATION OF THE ADOPTION 
OF THE FEDERAL CONSTITUTION. 

IT is remarkable that the first report of a celebration in Alexandria 
in any way connected with national affairs was reported by no 
less a hand than that of General George Washington. When the 
news reached that city that the requisite nine States had acceded to 
the Federal Constitution, the people of Alexandria immediately ordered 
a festival, and Washington, after attending it, addressed his friend, 
Charles Pin* knew under date of Mount Vernon, June 28, 1788, as 
follows : 

"No sooner had the citizens of Alexandria, who are Federal to a 
man, received the intelligence by the mail last night, than they de- 
termined to devote the day to festivity. But their exhilaration was 
greatly increased, and a much keener zest given to their enjoyments, by 
the arrival of an express, two hours before day, with the news that the 
Convention of New Hampshire had. on the 21st instant, acceded to 
the new confederacy by a majority of eleven voices. Thus the 
citizens of Alexandria when convened constituted the first assembly 
in America who had the pleasure of pouring a libation to the pros- 
perity of the ten States which had already adopted the general gov- 
ernment ;" and, after speculating upon the course of the remaining 
States, he added : "I have just returned from assisting at the enter- 
tainment." These citizens had a dinner at the City Hotel, which is 
still standing. 



,S SOME OLD HISTORIC LANDMARKS 

A SUMMARY OF WASHINGTON. 

Nobles arc made by patents, 

Which kings and queens bestow, — 
Of such the names of thousands, 

The books of lineage show. 

But only nature's patent 

Can give the noble aim, 
To true nobility of purpose, 

She only gives the claim. 

GK< )RGE WASHINGTON, whether as a private citizen, mingling 
with his neighbors and friends in a social or business capacity, 
or whether as a dignified actor and director in the public and national 
affairs of his country, is one of the very few men in the records of 
history who have successfully and triumphantly withstood the test 
and scrutiny of the world's adverse criticism. He stands out on the 
shifting scenes of the world's annals as a grandly imposing and unique 
personage, meriting and commanding as well, the veneration of every 
observer, no matter of what country or nationality, — and the citizens 
of the country he loved and defended, in their enthusiasm and grati- 
tude for his brilliant public services, love to contemplate him as a 
personage divinely ordained and appointed to open the way, not only 
for civil and religious liberty in America, but everywhere among the 
oppressed of humanity. 

He was not a soldier because of his fondness for tinsel, parade, or 
mere military glory, but because of the exigencies of the times in 
which he lived. After these exigencies had passed, he gladly yielded 
up all investiture of military authority and dropped back to the enjoy- 
ment of the calm delights of peace and quietude in his rural retreat, 
not sighing, as many a warrior had done before him, that there were 
no more campaigns to direct, no more victories to achieve, but re- 
joicing in the coming of the blessed reign of peace. His mission as 
a soldier had been grandly accomplished, and he was well content to 
await its beneficent results. 

As a victor he was magnanimous, lenient, and forbearing — never 
vaunted of his military prowess; and of all the pictorial representa- 
tions which adorned his rooms at Mount Vernon, not one of them 
represented any of the revolutionary scenes in which he had figured. 

There have been soldiers who have achieved mightier victories in 
the field, and made conquests more nearly corresponding to the bound- 
lessness of selfish ambition; statesmen who have been connected with 
more startling upheavals of society; but it is the greatness of Wash- 
ington, that in public trusts he used power solely for the public good ; 
that he was the life, and moderator, and stay of the most momentous 
revolution in human affairs: its moving impulse and its restraining 
power. Combining the centripetal and the centrifugal forces in their 
utmost strength, and in perfect relations, with creative grandeur of 
instinct, he held ruin in check, and renewed and .perfected the institu- 
tions of his country. Finding the colonies disconnected and dependent, 
he left them such a united and well-ordered commonwealth as no 
visionary had believed to be possible. So that it has been truly said, 
«'he was as fortunate as great and good." This also is the praise- 



OF VIRGINIA AXD MARYLAND. 49 

of Washington, that never in the tide of time has any man lived who 
had in so great a degree the almost divine faculty to command the 
confidence of his fellow-men and rule the willing. Wherever he 
became known, in his family, his neighborhood, his county, his native 
State, the continent, the camp, civil life, the United States, among 
the common people, in foreign courts, throughout the civilized world 
of the human race, and even among the savages, he, beyond all other 
men, had the confidence of his kind." 

On the sixteenth of June, 1775, he appeared in his place in Con- 
gress, after his appointment as* commander-in-chief of the colonial 
armies, and after refusing all pay beyond his expenses, he spoke with 
unfeigned modesty to his colleagues, — "As the Congress desire it, I 
will enter upon the momentous duty, and exert every power I possess 
in their service and for the support of the glorious cause. But I beg 
it may be remembered by every gentleman in the room that I this day 
declare, with the utmost sincerity, I do not think myself equal to the 
command I am honored with." 

Washington was not a bigot nor a zealot in religion, nor even a 
sectarian. " Profoundly impressed with confidence in God's provi- 
dence, and exemplary in his respect for the forms of public worship, 
no philosopher of the eighteenth century was more firm in the support 
of freedom of religious opinion ; but belief in God and trust in His 
overruling power formed the essence of his character. He believed 
that wisdom not only illumines the spirit, but inspires the will. He 
was a man of action, and not of theory or words. His creed appears 
in his life, not in his professions. His whole being was one continued 
act of faith in the eternal, intelligent, moral order of the universe. 
His broad and liberal conceptions of what constituted the basis of a 
common fatherhood and a common brotherhood would not allow of 
any narrowing or dwarfing of his natural convictions by the trammels 
of religious dogmas or formulas, and so he was tolerant of the fullest 
religious liberty and thought, believing that every man had the right 
implanted in him by the God of nature to worship Him in whatever 
way seemed to him best, consequently the creed of no church ever 
held him exclusively within its narrow limits. His true and tried 
friends were confined to no religious denomination, but were chosen 
from the widest range of religious thought, and selected only for real 
worth and integrity of character. As his diary bears witness, he was 
accustomed to attendance at all forms of worship, and doubtless he 
always found something in each which his unprejudiced judgment 
could approve and accept. In his neighborhood no churches existed 
but the Episcopal. These the laws of the colony had established, to 
the prejudice of all others, and made respectable, and it was quite 
natural, from his reverential and orderly habits, that he should have 
been a habitual attendant at their services with his neighbors ; and 
while he was one of the vestry in the church of both Alexandria and 
Pohick, he doubtless busied himself very little about vestry matters, 
further than to fill the numerical requirements." * 

* In those times the duties of the church vestry embraced not only religious matters 
but also many secular neighborhood affairs, requiring the judgment of just such a practi- 
cal man as Washington. 

4 



5° 



SOME OLD HISTORIC LANDMARKS 



He appears to have been so impressed with the importance of lis- 
tening to the inward monitor, or, as the Quakers are wont to express 
it, "the still, small voice," that in his rules of civility and behavior, 
written out by him for his guidance at the age of thirteen, he enjoined 
upon himself " to labor to keep alive in his breast that little spark of 
celestial fire called conscience." At that early age his code of rules 
show that he had determined to begin life right, and the story of all 
his subsequent years is evidence that he continued right. The germs 
of innate goodness and excellence had been implanted in his being, 
and, through wise parental solicitude and instruction and a strict 
obedience to duty, they steadily and beautifully unfolded to public 
observation and admiration with the passing of the years of his life. 
The pole-star of his impulses and the drift of his being were right 
and duty; to these everything was subordinate. He read correctly 
the motives of men and measured accurately their capabilities, and 
rarely erred in his estimate of character. He was frank in his inter- 
course, — never dissembled, never stooped to mean devices or subter- 
fuges. While he was open and courteous, fraternal and approachable, 
he was never trivial, never forgot his dignity, but always, whatever 
the occasion, so demeaned himself as to inspire every one with whom 
he came into contact, whether socially or in a business way, with the 
feeling that he was one of the very first of men among men. He was 
not an orator, and seldom attempted to express himself at length on 
any public occasion, but as a writer he excelled. His style, as pre- 
served in many volumes of miscellaneous letters and state papers, was 
plain, clear, and without unnecessary verbiage, and his expressions 
were rarely marred by instances of false syntax, though he had never 
had the advantages of more than a very limited common school edu- 
cation ; but from his youth upward he had been a constant and atten- 
tive reader of the best literature of the times, and was very observant 
of acknowledged models of the English language. 

In all his business transactions, and they were many and varied, no 
instance has been recorded by any writer of any attempt on his part 
to get the advantage of any of his fellows. He was a fast friend and 
a patron of merit. He recognized the divinity of labor, and be- 
lieved that it should be respected and fully requited. True, he was a 
slave-holder, but it was for the reason that labor was urgently needed 
in those times to open and subdue the wilderness, produce supplies, 
and develop the great resources of the country ; but he did not look 
upon his bondsmen as mere machines, devoid of feelings or sensi- 
bilities. There is the most authentic evidence that he looked most 
carefully after their welfare in respect to diet, raiment, quarters, and 
seasons of toil ; had them taught habits of industry, provided medical 
attendance for them in sickness, allowed them religious instruction, 
and by his last bequest, made July 9, 1799, ordered that they should 
all be freed. And it is but just to mention in this connection that 
from no one of his freed folks or their immediate descendants has 
there ever been heard any instance of unnecessary severities under his 
benign rule as a master. 

The estate was large and land for tillage was plenty, and every 



OF VIRGINIA AND MARYLAND. 51 

family had ample privileges of having plots of ground for growing all 
kinds of vegetables, while fish were abundant in the river and creeks, 
and wild game plenty in the woods. 

In 1 786, he wrote to Robert Morris, " There is not a man living who 
wishes more sincerely than I do to see a plan adopted for the abolition 
of slavery. But there is only one proper and effectual mode by which 
it can be accomplished, and that is by legislative authority ; and this, 
as far as my suffrage will go, shall never be wanting." And in another 
letter, written to his nephew, Robert Lewis, August 17, 1799, f° ur 
months before his death, he says, " I have more negroes on my estate 
of Mount Vernon than can be employed to any advantage in the farm- 
ing system ; and I shall never turn planter thereon. To sell the over- 
plus I cannot, because I am principled against that kind of traffic in 
the human species. To hire them out is almost as bad, because they 
cannot be disposed of in families to any advantage ; and to disperse 
the families I have an aversion." 

In a letter to John F. Mercer, of Virginia, September, 1786, he 
wrote, "I never mean, unless some particular circumstances should 
compel me to it, to possess another slave by purchase, it being among 
my first wishes to see some plan adopted by which slavery in this 
country may be abolished by law." Martha, his widow, in 1801, 
manumitted all the slaves she held in her own right. 

The relation of the African race to our nation, Washington repre- 
sented. He was not a radical reformer, not an ideal theorist, but a 
practical thinker and actor, and as such, he interpreted the African's 
destiny. He recognized his capacity to be a tiller of the soil and a 
mechanic, and treated him kindly; and taught and practised the prin- 
ciple of emancipation. He regarded slavery, indeed, as the law of 
the land, and denied the right of any citizen to interfere with the 
legal claims of the master to his slave, but he thought the law ought 
to be changed, and he stands in our history as the representative of 
the old school of emancipationists who regarded slavery as a fading 
relic of a semi-civilized form of society. He could work with the 
negro and mingle praise with blame in his judgments, and, without 
having extreme opinions of their gifts or virtues, he thought them fitted 
for freedom and capable of education. 

He was methodical in all his undertakings and pursuits, no matter 
of how commonplace. Kept a diary of ordinary as well as extraor- 
dinary events, and noted down regularly from day to day his expendi- 
tures, whether incurred for household necessities, raiment, the 
carrying on of his farm arrangements, or for travelling. His hand- 
writing, from his characteristic order and care, was invariably neat 
and legible, whether he wrote a state paper, a letter to some home or 
foreign dignitary, or whether he wrote a deed for the conveyance of 
land, or an order on his merchant, or a receipt to his mechanic, every 
letter was well formed and distinct, so that it never required, as is too 
often the case with public men, much time to decipher his meaning. 

As a farmer, he was not content to merely follow the modes which 
had long prevailed with the planters around him, but at a very early 
period of his farming operations he put into practice new and more 



52 SOME OLD HISTORIC LANDMARKS 

advantageous systems of cropping and manuring; laid down his land 
to grass ; planted out orchards of the best fruits then obtainable ; 
employed the newest agricultural implements, and had a constant care 
to obtain the best seeds and the most improved stock. Washington 
was a farmer by choice and because he believed the " calling to be the 
most healthful, the most useful, and the noblest employment of man." 
He might have entered many avenues opened for him when a young 
man which would have led him to distinction, for he had that within 
him which would have insured success whatever the undertaking. But 
the quietude and peaceful surroundings of a rural life were more in 
keeping with his natural inclinations than the circumstances of other 
pursuits, which to many of the young men now coming up around us 
seem far more attractive. 

He was domestic in his habits, and loved the peace, the tranquillity, 
and joys of home life. And we most delight to dwell on the part of 
the history of this great man which pictures that life — the life he led 
as a plain, unpretending citizen of the republic he had been so instru- 
mental in establishing. What to a man of the finer sensibilities is the 
tinselry and show and power of a public life when compared with 
genial minds and with nature clothed in the simple and beautiful garb 
of truth ? Of all men, none could appreciate the difference better than 
Washington. " 1 am now, I believe," he writes in a letter from 
Mount Vernon, "fixed in this seat, and I hope'to find more happi- 
ness in retirement than I ever experienced in the wide and bustling 
world." 

His hospitality was large, and his generosities and charities wide- 
reaching. No one was more ready to acknowledge an error of heart 
or judgment, nor more magnanimous to those differing in opinions. 

We do not claim that he was perfect, for perfection in humanity is 
impossible. We only claim for him that he came as near to filling the 
measure of the " noblest work of God" as any other man in history. 
And certainly no character in all its aspects or bearings is more 
worthy of emulation by the youth of our country than his. His 
closing scene on the fourteenth of December, 1799, was peaceful, and 
a grateful people mourned for him as a father indeed. 



GUNSTON— THE HOME OF GEORGE MASON. 

'Twas an old colonial palace, 

Ere that brazen boom 
Thunder'd freedom from the State House 

Thro' the thrilling land. 
In those days it was a great house, 

Spacious, feudal, grand. 

THE next place of historic interest below Belvoir is Gunston, an 
estate once containing seven thousand acres, the home of 
George Mason, who is known in history as the author of Virginia's 
Bill of Rights and her Constitution ; and who served as one of her 
earlier governors. He came of a distinguished and honored English 



I Page 52 1 




OF VIRGINIA AND MARYLAND. 53 

stock. He was fifth in descent from that George Mason, the first of 
the family in Virginia, who was a member of the British Parliament 
in the reign of Charles I., and who opposed with eloquence the arbi- 
trary measures of the king, but at the commencement of the civil 
war drew his sword in his favor against the soldiers of Cromwell, and 
afterwards commanded a regiment under Charles II. at the battle of 
Worcester, and later, in disguise escaped to Virginia, the refuge of 
many distinguished royalists, and landed in the county of Norfolk in 
165 1. Comparatively little has been written of the career of the 
George Mason of our sketch. It lives rather in tradition than in the 
pages of history. Such a fact is unworthy of his countrymen. He 
married Ann Eilbeck, of Charles County, Maryland, who died at the 
age of thirty-nine. After many years he married a lady of the name 
of Brent, but. of this union there was no issue. He was one of the 
best and purest men of his time, and possessed the confidence of 
those younger civilians, Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe, whose opin- 
ions he did much to mould and shape along the lines which led to 
American independence. He was a. near neighbor to Washington 
and the Fairfaxes, and on the most intimate terms with them. In 
1776 we find him writing to his agent in London a powerful state- 
ment of the wrongs inflicted by the mother government upon the 
colonies ; and about the same time appeared his masterly exposition 
of "colonial rights," entitled "Extracts from the Virginia charters, 
with remarks upon them." In 1769 he drafted the "Articles of 
Association" against importing British goods, which the Burgesses 
signed in a body on their dissolution by Lord Botetourt ; and in 
1774 he drew up the celebrated Fairfax County Resolutions, upon the 
attitude to be assumed by Virginia. In 1776 he was elected to repre- 
sent his county in the convention of that year, and drew up the " Bill 
of Rights" already alluded to, which was adopted. Jefferson, then in 
Philadelphia, had written " a preamble and sketch" to be offered ; but 
Mason's had been reported, and the final vote was about to be taken 
when it arrived. Mason's bill was therefore adopted, but Jefferson's 
" preamble" was attached to the Constitution. Mason sat afterwards 
in the Assembly, and supported Jefferson in his great reforms of the 
organic laws, as the cutting off of entails, the abolishing of primo- 
geniture, and the overthrow of church establishments. The disinter- 
ested public spirit of the man may be inferred from the fact that, by 
birth and education, he belonged to the dominant class and to the 
Episcopal Church. He also advocated the bill forbidding the further 
importation of slaves in 1778, and ten years afterwards sat in' the Con- 
vention to decide on the adoption or rejection of the Federal Consti- 
tution. He was elected one of the senators for Virginia, but declined 
the honor on account of pressing home duties. He continued to re- 
side on his Gunston estate, contented and happy, though suffering at 
times from attacks of gout, an hereditary enemy. His death occurred 
in 1792, at the age of sixty-six, and his remains, unmarked by stone 
or tablet, rest in the Gunston family burial-place, but in the much 
admired group of sculptured heroes and statesmen which adorns State 
House Square in Richmond his statue is conspicuous. 



54 



SOME OLD HISTORIC LANDMARKS 



Such is a brief outline of the life of a remarkable man, whose 
services to his State were almost inestimable. He was deficient in 
powers of oratory ; but, like Jefferson, who shared the same disability, 
was all powerful with the pen. The " Bill of Rights" will live longer 
than the eloquence of Patrick Henry, however, for it stands as it was 
written, while the utterances of the great prophet of the Revolution 
are even now fading from the memories of men. The "Bill of 
Rights" is enough to perpetuate the fame of its author in the absence 
of all other memorials of his life. It is a great and masterly state- 
ment of constitutional rights, and remains to-day, as it ever will, the 
corner-stone of republican government. Derived in a measure from 
Mason's long and profound study of the great writers of England 
upon constitutional freedom, it was yet, in the comprehensive sense, 
entirely original, for he infused into it the free spirit of the New 
World. From all the great and noble men who were then prominent 
in public affairs, the Fairfax County planter was selected to perform 
this important work, and the fact is an incontestable proof of the 
favorable light in which his contemporaries regarded the character of 
his mind and his genius. 

in social life George Mason showed to great advantage. Though 
somewhat stately and formal in his bearing, no man was more engag- 
ing in deportment towards his friends, and no friends were warmer 
than his own. In person he was rather above the medium height, full 
in form, and with a courtly and erect figure. His statue represents 
him correctly, — in full court dress, with ample nifties, and looking 
composedly and serenely forward. It is the look of a man who 
"knows his rights," and, "knowing, dare maintain," whatever 
dangers stand in the path or threaten his vindication of them. Few 
of our people are aware of how much of our republican faith has 
come down to us from George Mason and his Virginia company, 
wrought out in the stormy days of the Revolution. 

The Gunston estate is separated from Relvoir by Accotink Ray. It 
has been divided and subdivided since the time of its distinguished 
proprietor into many small farms, now mostly owned and occupied by 
Northern settlers. The mansion, built in the year 1739 by the sub- 
ject of our sketch, is one of the very few types of the best order of 
houses of the early colonial days which have escaped the ravages of 
time and the brand of the incendiary. Its massive, well-cemented 
walls of bricks brought from Old England by tobacco ships, and its 
interior structures of wainscoting and panelling, and other work of 
the joiner] have continued through the many generations almost intact. 
Gunston Hall was built after the old manor house of the Mason family 
in England. It is about eighty feet in length by forty in width, and 
is a more pretentious structure than that of Mount Vernon. The old- 
fashioned wide hall and the spacious parlors are carved tastefully and 
minutely. In the year 1742 there was shipped from the landing of 
this estate twenty-two thousand bushels of wheat and live large cargoes 
of tobacco, packed in the old-fashioned hogsheads. 

Gunston has furnished three United States senators and several 
members of Congress ; and after Mount Vernon is, without doubt, the 



OF VIRGINIA AND MARYLAND. 55 

most historic home in Virginia. The following lines were written by 
a sojourner under its roof on a Christmas night a few years ago : 

I sat in Gunston Hall; — 
( iiim shadows on the wall 

Around me pressed, 
As memories of the past 
Came crowding thick and fast, 
And to my mind, at last, 

Their theme addressed. 

Back from the shadowy land 
They pressed, a noble band, 

A stalwart race; — 
I saw them come and go, 
As if they thought to show 
Their stately grandeur to 

My mind apace. 

From wall and ceiling high, 
And ancient panel nigh, 

Their faces showed ; 
I marked them, one and all, 
Majestic, grand, and tall, 
As from the corniced wall 

Their shadows strode. 

Then hall and mansion wide 
They filled on every side, 

With phantoms grand ; 
While, at the outer gate, 
Pressed carriages of state, 
With spectral steeds to mate 

The shadowy band. 

I saw the hearth-stones blaze, 
As in colonial days, 

At this old hall; 
With beauty Hashing high, 
And gallants thronging nigh, 
As if some lovedit eye 

Held them in thrall. 

They seemed to grow apace 
Like old Antenor's race, 

( )f Trojan fame ; 
Or men of lofty state, 
( )n whom the good and great 
Bestowed their utmost weight 

( If honored name. 

Then prouder tonus were seen, 
( )f more majestic mien, — 

Those grand old knights, 
Whose sires at Runnymede 
Stocked England with a breed 
Of men that made kings heed 

Their subjects' rights. 



5 6 SOME OLD HISTORIC LANDMARKS 

Their spectral grandeur showed* 
In every step they trode 

Through ancient hall, 
While women held their place 
Supreme in every grace 
With which the Gothic race 

Invests them all. 

Each captive husband vied, 
With lover by his side, 

To own her sway, 
Who practised less the art 
To win than keep a heart 
That once to Cupid's dart 

Had fallen prey ! 

While wives with sweethearts strove 
To keep the torch of love 

In constant flame, 
That, like sweet Omphale, 
They might retain their sway, 
And yet their lords obey 

By rightful claim. 

So passed the shadowy throng, 
In misty group along, 

As fancy played, 
< >r pictured, one by one, 
These spectral scenes upon 
My mind, as night wore on 

With deep'ning shade. 

And as my eyelids fell 
They grew more palpable — 

These spectres grand, 
That still, in Guriston Hall, 
Hold nightly carnival, 
As fancy stirs withal 

Her conjurer's wand. 

The eldest son of George Mason the fifth, the subject of our sketch, 
was George of "Lexington," a captain in the Revolutionary Army, 
and succeeded his father at his death, in 1792, to the possession of 
Gunston Hall, and was the last of the name that ever lived there. He 
left five sons and four daughters, all of whom married and had issue. 
The fourth and last surviving son was John Mason, of Analastan Island, 
the father of James Murray Mason, who was from 1847 to 1861 United 
States Senator from Virginia. 

With Slidell he figured in the Trent affair, and was afterwards Con- 
federate commissioner in England. He was the only direct descendant 
ever in the upper house of Congress. 

The eldest daughter of John Mason became the wife of the late 
Samuel Cooper, formerly in the Federal service, and afterwards 
Adjutant-General of the Confederate Army. Another daughter mar- 
ried S. Smith Lee, brother of Robert E. Lee, and was the mother of 
Governor Fitzhugh Lee. 



OF VIRGINIA AND MARYLAND. 



THE INAUGURATION OF WASHINGTON. 



57 



" T T would seem, from all we have learned of Washington's early and 
later career, that Providence had specially appointed him by 
birth and education to be the leader and director in the Western world 
of the revolution which was to open the way for the founding there 
of a new and a free English-speaking nation. Every factor, whether 
of lineage or culture, in his admirably balanced character as well as 
every aspiration of his heart from his cradle to his grave is of exceed- 
ing great interest to the world. Although deprived of a father's care 
at the age of eleven years, he was, however, especially blest in having 
such a mother as the noble Mary Washington, who conscientiously 
discharged her sacred duty as his guardian, counsellor, and friend. 
Hence, filial reverence grew with his growth and strengthened with his 
maturing years into fixed principles, making him throughout all his 
eventful life loyal to every virtue and heroic in every trust. He 
seems to have had no idle boy life, but was a man with manly instincts 
and ambitions from his youth." 

There came a sunshiny day in April, 1789, when George Washing- 
ton, President-elect of the United States by the unanimous voice of 
the people, stood on a balcony in front of the Senate Chamber in the 
old Federal Hall on Wall Street, to take the oath of office. An im- 
mense multitude filled the streets and the windows and roofs of the 
adjoining houses. 

Clad in a suit of dark brown cloth of American manufacture, with 
hair powdered, and with white silk stockings, silver shoe-buckles, and 
steel-hilted dress sword, the hero who had led the colonies to their 
independence came modestly forward to take up the burdens that 
peace had brought. Profound silence fell upon the multitude as 
Washington responded solemnly to the reading of the oath of office, 
" I swear — so help me, God." 

Then, amid cheers, the display of flags, and the ringing of all the 
bells in the city, our first President turned to face the duties his country- 
men had imposed upon him. In sight of those who would have made 
an idol of him, Washington's first act was to seek the aid of other 
strength than his own. In the calm sunshine of that April afternoon, 
fragrant with the presence of seed-time and the promise of harvest, 
we leave him on his knees in Old St. Paul's, bowed with the sim- 
plicity of a child at the feet of the Supreme Ruler of the universe. 

MARY, THE MOTHER. 

YOU have reared this beautiful obelisk to one who was " the light 
of the dwelling" in a plain rural colonial home. Her history 
hovers around it. She was wife, mother, and widow. She nursed a hero 
at her breast. At her knee she trained to the love and fear of God 
and to the kingly virtues, honor, truth, and valor, the lion of the 
tribe that gave to America liberty and independence. This is her 
title to renown. It is enough, 



5 8 SOME OLD HISTORIC LANDMARKS 

Eternal dignity and heavenly grace dwell upon the brow of this 
blessed mother ; nor burnished gold nor sculptured stone nor rhyth- 
mic praise could add one jot or tittle to her chaste glory. She was 
simply a private citizen. No sovereign's crown rested on her brow. 
She did not lead an army, like Joan of Arc, or slay a tyrant, like 
Charlotte Corday. She was not versed in letters or in arts. She was 
not an angel of mercy, like Florence Nightingale, nor the consort of 
a hero, like the mother of Napoleon. But for the light that streamed 
from the deeds of him she bore, we would doubtless have never heard 
the name of Mary Washington, and the grass that grew upon this 
grave had not been disturbed by curious footsteps or reverential hands. 
— Daniel 's Oration. 

MARY WASHINGTON. 

THE Rappahannock ran in the reign of good Queen Anne, 
All townless from the mountains to the sea, 
Old Jamestown was forlorn and King Williamsburg scarce born — 

'Twas the year of Blenheim's victory, 
Whose trumpets died away in far Virginia 

On the cabin of an old tobacco farm, 
Where a planter's little wife to a little girl gave life, 
And the fire in the chimney made it warm. 

It was little Mary Ball, and she had no fame at all, 

But the world was all the same as if she had ; 
For she had the right to breathe and to tottle and to teethe, 

And to love some other cunning little lad : 
Though he proved a widower, it was all the same to her, 

For he gave her many a daughter and a son, 
And the family was large and the oldest, little George, 

Was the hope of little Widow Washington. 

The name resounded not in the time we have forgot, 

It was nothing more than Smith or Jones or Ball ; 
And George's big half-brothers had the call on their stepmother's 

Affection, like the babes of her own stall ; 
They paid the larger taxes, and the Ayletts and Fairfaxes 

Received them in their families and lands, 
While the widow thought upon it, she rode in her sunbonnet, 

Midst her slaves who tilled her gulleys and her sands. 

Till they sought to take her George upon the royal barge, 

And give him a commission and a crest, 
When her heart cried out, " O, no ! Something says he must not go ; 

My first-born is a father to the rest." 
She could find him little schooling, but he did not learn much fooling, 

And he dragged the mountains o'er with chain and rod, 
The Blue Ridge was his cover and the Indian his lover 

And his Duty was his Sovereign and God. 

Still her rival in his heart was the military art, 

And the epaulettes she dreaded still were there. 
There are households still where glory is a broket. -hearted story, 

And the drum is a mockery and snare. 
From the far-off Barbadoes, from the yell of Frenchmen foes, 

From the ghost of Braddock's unavailing strife, 
She beheld her boy return and his bridal candles burn, 

And a widow like herself became his wife. 



OF VIRGINIA AND MAR VIAND. 59 

By Potomac's pleasant tide he was settled with his bride, 

Overseeing horses, hounds and cocks and wards, 
And it seemed but second nature to go to the legislature 

And play his hand at politics and cards. 
Threescore and ten had come when the widow heard the drum. 

•' My God !" she cried, " what demon is at large f" 
"lis the conflict with the king, 'tis two worlds a mustering, 

And the call of 1 hity comes to mother's George. 

•■ I i war I To plague me so ! Must my first-born ever go ?" 

Her answer is the bugle and the gun. 
The town fills up again with the horse of Mercer's men, 

Ami the name they call aloud is Washington. 
In the long, distracting years none may count the widow's tears : 

She is banished o'er the mountains from her farm ; 
She is old and lives with strangers, while ride wide the king's red rangers, 

And the only word is " Arm !" and " Arm !" and " Arm !" 

" Come home and see your son, the immortal Washington, 

He has beat the king and mighty Cornwallis !" 
They ciowd her little door and she sees her boy once more ; 

But there is no glory in him like his kiss. 
The marquises and dukes, in their orders and perukes, 

The aides-de-camp, the generals and all, 
Stand by to see and listen how her aged eyes will glisten 

To hear from him the tale of Vorktown's fall. 

I pun that her lips are dumb to the trumpet and the drum ; 

All their pageantry is vanity and stuff. 
So he leans upon her breast she cares nothing for the rest — 

It is he and that is victory enough ! 
In the life that mothers give is their thirst that man shall live 

And the species never lose the legacy. 
To love again on earth and repeat the wondrous birth — 

That is glory — that is immortality. 

Unto Fredericksburg at last, when her fourscore years are past. 

Now gray himself, he rides all night to say : 
'• Madame — mother — ere I went to become the President 

I have come to kiss you till another day." 
" Xo, George; the sight of thee, which I can hardly see. 

Is all for all — good-by ; I can be brave. 
Fulfil your great career as I have fulfilled my sphere ; 

My station can be nothing but the grave." 

The mother's love sank down, and its sunset on his crown 

Shone like the dying beams of perfect day; 
lie has none like her to mix in the draught of politics 

The balm that softens injury away. 
But he was his mother's son till his weary race was done: 

Her gravity, her peace, her golden mien 
Shed on the state the good of her sterling womanhood, 

And like her own was George's closing scene. 

George Alfred Tozvnsend. 

WASHINGTON'S BARN. 

\T 7ASHINGTOX had an inventive as well as a systematic and 
'V thorough turn of mind, and was always devising some new 
and better method for the lessening of the labors of the hands on his 
estate. He greatly improved many of the unwieldy implements then 



60 SOME OLD HISTORIC LANDMARKS 

in use, such as ploughs, harrows, hoes, and axes ; for he had carpenter, 
smith, and smithy always at hand to materialize his ideas. 

His circular, or sixteen-sided, barn of brick and frame, sixty feet in 
diameter, with two stories, was the wonder of his neighbors. The 
threshing or treading-out floor, ten feet wide, was in the second story, 
all round the centre mows ; and the oxen or horses were taken up to 
it by an inclined plane. The floor of it was of open slats, that the 
grains might, without the straw, fall through to the floor below. Later, 
he had constructed a device, worked by horse-power, by which the 
heads of wheat sheaves, held on a table against rapidly-revolving arms, 
were beaten out ; and was probably the first step, after the hoof and 
flail, towards the power-thresher of the present day. 



WASHINGTON'S COACH. 

MADE in England, 1789. The body and wheels were of cream 
color, then very fashionable, with gilt relief, and the body 
was suspended upon the old-fashioned, heavy, leathern straps, like 
those of the former-day stage-coaches. Part of the sides and front 
were shaded by green Venetian blinds, enclosed by black leather cur- 
tains. The lining was of black, glossy leather. The Washington 
arms were handsomely painted on the doors, with the characteristic 
motto, " Exitus, acta probat" — the result proves actions. Upon 
each of the four panels of the coach was a picture of the four seasons. 
Usually, the General drove but four horses, but on going from Mount 
Vernon to the seat of government, at Philadelphia or New York, he 
drove six. 

DESCENT OF MOUNT VERNON. 

JUDGE BUSHROD WASHINGTON, who inherited Mount Ver- 
non from his uncle, General Washington, was the third child of 
John Augustine Washington and his wife Hannah, daughter of 
Colonel John Bushrod, of Westmoreland County, Va. He came into 
full possession of the estate after the demise of Mrs. Martha Wash- 
ington, widow of the general, which occurred May 22, 1802. Judge 
Washington was a Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, 
and resided at Mount Vernon, dispensing a liberal hospitality, and 
keeping intact his inherited landed estate to the time of his death. 
He was married in 1785 to Anna, daughter of Colonel Thomas Black- 
burn, of Rippon Lodge, Prince William County, Va. They had no 
children. He made a will, and, following the example of his illus- 
trious uncle, he provided for his wife during her life and then disposed 
of his estate to his nephews and nieces, giving specific directions, and 
leaving the mansion house and the Mount Vernon farm proper, with 
restricted bounds, which he specifically defined, to his nephew, John 
Augustine Washington, from whom the Ladies' Association purchased. 



OF VIRGINIA AND MARYLAND. 61 



EXTRACTS FROM WASHINGTON'S DIARY. 

1774- 

WENT to Pohick Church with Mr. Custis. 
Went to the barbecue at Accotink. 

Colonel Pendleton, Mr. Henry, and Colonel Mason came in the 
evening and stayed all night. 

Colonel Pendleton, Mr. Henry, and 1 set out on our journey to 
Philadelphia to attend the Congress. 

Dined with Mr. Pleasants (a Quaker) . 

Dined with Joseph Pemberton (a Quaker). 

Went to Quaker meeting in the forenoon, and to St. Peter's in the 
afternoon. 

Went to Christ Church, and dined at the New Tavern. 

Went to the Presbyterian meeting in the forenoon, and to the 
Romish church in the afternoon. 

Went to Christ Church in the afternoon. 

Dined at the New Tavern with the Pennsylvania Assembly, and 
went to the Ball afterwards. 



1773- 

May i. Went fishing in Broad Creek. 

April 13, 1774. In company with Colonel Bassett went fishing 
in Broad Creek. 



A LOVE SONNET OF WASHINGTON AT THE AGE 
OF SIXTEEN, FROM HIS DIARY. 

OH ye gods, why should my poor resistless heart 
Stand to oppose thy might and power, 
At last surrender to Cupid's feather'd dart, 

And now lays bleeding every hour 
For her that's pitiless of my grief and woes', 

And will not on me pity take. 
He sleeps amongst my most inveterate foes, 

And with gladness never wish to wake. 
In deluding sleepings let my eyelids close, 

That in an enraptured dream I may 
In a soft, lulling sleep and gentle repose 

Possess those joys denied by day, 
From your bright, sparkling eyes I was undone ; 
Rays you have ; more transparent than the sun, 
Amidst its glory in the rising day 
None can you equal in your bright array ; 
Constant in your calm and unspotted mind ; 
Equal to all, but will to none prove kind, 
So knowing, seldom one so young, you'll find. 
Ah ! woe's me, that I should love and conceal, 
Long have I wish'd, but never dare reveal, 
Even though severely love's pains I feel : 
Xerxes that great, wast free from Cupid's dart, 
And all the greatest heroes felt the smart. 



62 SOME OLD HISTORIC LANDMARKS 



A LOVE LETTER WRITTEN AT SIXTEEN, FROM 

HIS DIARY. 

DEAR SALLY, — This comes to Fredericksburg fair in hopes of 
meeting with a speedy passage to you if your not there, which 
hope you'l get shortly, altho I am almost discouraged from writing to 
you, as this is my fourth to you since I received any from yourself. 
I hope you'l not make the old proverb good, out of sight out of 
mind, as its one of the greatest pleasures I can yet forsee of having 
in Fairfax, in often hearing from you, hope you'l not deny me. 

I pass the time much more agreeably than what I imagined I should, 
as there's a very agreeable young lady lives in the same house where 
I reside (Colonel George Fairfax's wife's sister), that in a great meas- 
ure cheats my sorrow and dejectedness, tho not so as to draw my 
thoughts altogether from your parts. I could wish to be with you 
down there with all my heart, but as a thing almost impracticable 
shall rest myself where I am with hopes of shortly having some min- 
utes of your transactions in your parts which will be very welcomely 
received by your 

Geo. W. 

COLONEL WASHINGTON, OF MOUNT VERNON. 

OWING to the death, some years before, of Lawrence Washington's 
only child, Sarah, followed as it shortly after was by that of 
his widow Annie, Colonel George Washington, already proprietor of 
the paternal estate on the Rappahannock, had inherited, with much 
additional property, the magnificent domain of Mount Vernon, and 
was now one of the wealthiest planters of the Old Dominion. Wash- 
ington's fondness for agricultural pursuits had not been the only 
motive of his retirement. The harassing cares of his command had 
not exerted a complete monopoly of his thoughts during this prolonged 
period of Indian warfare. The romantic traditions of his courtship it 
is unnecessary to recall here. On the seventeenth of January, 1759, 
he was married to Mrs. Custis, a very young and wealthy widow, who 
formerly had been the most attractive belle at the vice-regal court of 
Williamsburg. The ceremony was performed, amid a joyous assem- 
blage of relatives and friends, at the White House, the bride's home, 
where they remained until the trees were budding at Mount Vernon, 
when they took up their permanent residence there. Washington at 
this time wrote to a friend, " I am now, I believe, fixed in this seat, 
with an agreeable partner for life, and I hope to find more happiness 
in retirement than I ever experienced in the wide and bustling world. 
No estate in America is more pleasantly situated. In a 
high and healthy country ; in a latitude between the extremes of heat 
and cold ; on one of the finest rivers in the world — a river well stocked 
with various kinds of fish at all seasons of the year. The borders of 
the estate are washed by more than ten miles of tidewater. The 
whole shore is one entire fishery." The whole region thereabout, 



OF VIRGINIA AND MARYLAND. 63 

with its range of forests and hills and picturesque promontories, 
afforded sport of various kinds, and was a noble hunting-ground. 

These were, as yet, the aristocratical days of Virginia. The estates 
were large, and continued in the same families by entail. A style of 
living prevailed which has long since faded away. The houses, liberal 
in all their appointments, were fitted to cope with the free-handed, 
open-hearted hospitality of the owners. Each estate was a little 
empire, and its mansion-house the seat of government, where the 
planter ruled supreme. The negro quarters formed a hamlet apart. 
Among the slaves were artificers of all kinds, so that a plantation pro- 
duced within itself everything for ordinary use. Articles of fashion 
and elegance, luxuries and expensive clothing were imported from 
London, for the planters on the Potomac carried on an immediate 
trade with England. Their tobacco, put up by their own negroes, 
bore their own marks, and was shipped directly to their agents in 
Liverpool or Bristol. But have not all these things been chronicled 
in the annals of the house of Castlewood ? 

Washington, instead of trusting to overseers, gave his personal 
attention to every detail of the management of his estate. He car- 
ried into his rural affairs the same method, activity, and circumspec- 
tion that had distinguished him in military life. He made a complete 
survey of his lands, apportioned them into farms, and regulated the 
cultivation of all. The products of his estate became so noted for 
the faithfulness — as to quality and quantity — with which they were 
put up, that it is stated that any barrel of flour that bore the brand of 
George Washington, Mount Vernon, was exempted from the customary 
inspection in the ports to which it was sent. There were many re- 
laxations in the arduous duties he had assumed. He delighted in the 
chase. In the height of the season he would be out with the fox 
hounds two or three times a week, accompanied by his guests and the 
gentlemen of the neighborhood, and ending the day with a hunting 
dinner, when he is said to have enjoyed himself with unwonted 
hilarity. He also greatly relished duck-shooting, in which he was 
celebrated for his skill. The Potomac was the scene of considerable 
aquatic state at that time, and Washington had his barge, rowed by 
six uniformed negroes, to visit his friends on the Maryland side of the 
river. He had his chariot and four, with black postilions in livery, 
for the use of Mrs. Washington and her lady visitors. As for himself 
he always appeared on horseback. His stable was well filled and 
admirably regulated — his stud all thoroughbred. Occasionally he and 
Mrs. Washington would pay a visit to Annapolis, and partake of the 
gaieties which prevailed during the sessions of the legislature. 

In this round of rural occupation, rural amusements, and social 
intercourse, Washington passed many tranquil years, the halcyon sea- 
son of his life. His already established reputation drew many visitors 
to Mount Vernon, who were sure to be received with cordial hospi- 
tality. His marriage was unblessed with children, but those of Mrs, 
Washington received from him parental care and affection. His 
domestic concerns were never permitted to interfere with his public 
duties. As judge of the county court, and member of the House of 



64 SOME OLD HISTORIC LANDMARKS 

Burgesses, he had numerous calls upon his time and thoughts \ for 
whatever trust he undertook, he was sure to" fulfil with scrupulous 
exactness. 

The Commander-in-Chief. 

The storm of the Revolution, so long impending, had suddenly 
burst over the land, and Washington, who had represented Virginia 
in the First Continental Congress, and was now a member of the 
second, was by it, June 15, 1775, unanimously called to the command 
of the colonial army. On the 20th he received his commission, and 
the following day started for Boston on horseback to take command. 
" There is something charming to me in the conduct of Washington," 
wrote John Adams at the time. "A gentleman of one of the first 
fortunes on the continent, leaving his delicious retirement, his family 
and friends, sacrificing his ease and hazarding all in the cause of his 
country. His views are noble and disinterested." And M,s. Adams 
wrote on his arrival before Boston, " Dignity, ease, and complacency, 
the gentleman and the soldier, are agreeably blended in him. Modesty 
marks every feature of his face." The honors with which he was 
received only told him how much was expected from him, and when 
he looked around upon the raw and rustic levies he was to com- 
mand, " a mixed multitude of people, without discipline, order, or 
government," scattered about in rough encampments, beleaguering a 
city garrisoned by an army of veteran troops, with ships of war in its 
harbor, he felt the awful responsibility of his situation, and the com- 
plicated and stupendous task before him. ' ' The cause of my country, ' ' 
he wrote, " has called me to an active and dangerous duty, but I trust 
that Divine Providence will enable me to discharge it with fidelity and 
success.'" With what unswerving and untiring fidelity, and with what 
complete and splendid ultimate success — despite disaster, mutiny, 
faithlessness, and treachery in those most trusted, privations without 
parallel, difficulties such as never leaders encountered before, bitter 
rivalries, the opposition of Congress, and the loss of confidence, as 
once wellnigh seemed, of a whole people — Washington, never falter- 
ing, discharged his trust during the long, weary years that followed 
needs no repetition here. There are no better known pages in the 
world's history. 

At Mount Vernon Again. 

Having resigned his commission to the Congress at Annapolis 
(December 23, 1783), Washington hastened to his beloved Mount 
Vernon, arriving on Christmas Eve in a frame of mind well suited to 
enjoy the festival. " I feel now," he wrote, ''as I conceive a weary 
traveller must do, who, after treading many a weary step with a heavy 
burden on his shoulders, is eased of the labor, having reached the 
haven to which all the former were directed." And again: "The 
scene is at last closed. T am now a private citizen 01. the banks of 
the Potomac. I feel myself eased of a load of public care. With 
heartfelt satisfaction will I tread the paths of private life; and this 
being the order of my life, I will move gently down the stream of life 



OF VIRGINIA AND MARYLAND. 65 

until I sleep with my fathers." Throughout the whole of his cam- 
paigns he had kept himself informed of the course of rural affairs at 
Mount Vernon. By means of maps, on which every field was laid 
down and numbered, he was enabled to give minute directions as to 
their cultivation. Now he gladly resumed the direct management. 
His diaries show how diligently he improved the groves and shrubbery 
about the house. At the opening of the year he transplanted ivy 
under the walls of the garden (to which it still clings), planted hemlock 
trees, and sowed holly berries in a semicircle around the lawn, many 
of the bushes from which flourish in full vigor now. Each day's labor 
was noted down — how he went in quest of young elms, ash trees, 
white thorn crab-apples, mulberries, willows and lilacs, laid out 
winding walks and planted trees and shrubs along them ; how he 
sowed acorns and buckeye nuts brought from the Monongahela, 
opened vistas through the pine grove, and twined around his columns 
scarlet honeysuckles, to blossom all the summer. His careworn spirit 
freshened up in these employments. With him Mount Vernon was a 
perpetual idyl. The transient glow of poetical feeling which once 
visited his bosom when in boyhood he rhymed beneath its groves 
seemed about to return once more, and we please ourselves with 
noting among the trees set out by him a group of young horse chest- 
nuts from Westmoreland, the home of his childhood, sent to him by 
the son of his "Lowland Beauty." 

Enlargement of the Mansion. 

Washington made no change in the appearance of the mansion (as 
left by his brother) until 1785, when he determined to enlarge it, in 
order to provide for the increasing number of his guests. He obtained 
from England workmen and materials, and by the close of this year 
had completed his improvement, in which he was his own architect, 
drawing every plan and specification with his own hand. The interior 
of the old house remained unchanged ; but wings were added and the ex- 
terior remodelled. Its appearance to-day is as when completed then. 
It was of the most substantial frame-work (cut in imitation of stone), 
two stories and attic in height, ninety-six feet in length by thirty in 
depth, with a piazza fifteen feet in depth extending along the entire 
eastern or river front, supported by square columns twenty-five feet in 
height, over this a light balustrade, and in the centre of the roof an 
observatory and spire. There were seven high dormer windows- — 
three on the eastern side, one on each end, and two on the western 
or lawn side. The ground floor contained six rooms (there were 
originally but four), with the old spacious hall in the centre of the 
building, extending through it from east to west, and the stairway. 
On the south side of the hall was the parlor, library, and breakfast- 
room, from which last a narrow staircase ascended to the private study 
on the second floor; on the north side a music-room, parlor, and 
dancing-room, in which when there was much company the guests 
sometimes entertained at table. The principal feature of this room 
was the large mantelpiece, wrought in Italy, of statuary and Sienite 

" 5 



66 SOME OLD HISTORIC LANDMARKS 

marbles, exquisitely carved in ever) part, bearing in relief scenes in 
agricultural life. The interiors of the new rooms were finished to 
correspond with the old ones. At the same time were built, near the 
mansion, on either side, a substantial kitchen and laundry, connected 
with it by colonnades. These, with other outlying buildings there 
erected, all remain, with the exception of an extensive conservatory. 
Washington, thus occupied with the development of his estate, was 
meanwhile unconsciously exercising a powerful influence on national 
affairs. He was obliged to maintain an extensive correspondence, 
and the opinions and counsels given in his letters were widely effective. 
No longer the soldier, he was now becoming the statesman. 

The First President. 

The electors chosen under the new Constitution were unanimous in 
calling Washington to the presidential chair. On the 16th of April, 
1789, he again bade adieu to Mount Vernon, and set out for the seat 
of government. His progress to New York was a continuous ovation. 
There on April 30 the first President of the United States was inau- 
gurated. 

It is not our purpose to dwell upon the incidents of the following 
eight years, when Washington so worthily filled the loftiest position 
within the gift of any people. During this period, crowded with 
events most important in the formative history of the republic, its 
chief magistrate — it may surprise those unfamiliar with the publica- 
tions of the time — was pursued in his official acts, and even private 
life, by a bitter partisan malignity, the like of which is almost un- 
known in our later day. The pressure of public duties admitted but 
few opportunities to visit his home. During one of these visits there, 
in the summer of 1796, he wrote his farewell address, which a great 
British historian has declared to be " unequalled by any composition 
of uninspired wisdom." He was now looking forward with unfeigned 
longing to his retirement. His term of office expired March 4, 1797, 
when Mr. Adams, in his inaugural address, spoke of his predecessor 
as one "who, by a long course of great actions, regulated by pru- 
dence, justice, temperance, and fortitude, had merited the gratitude of 
his fellow-citizens, commanded the highest praises of foreign nations, 
and secured immortal glory with posterity." 

The Haven of Rest. 

He was now at Mount Vernon again, to the repose of which he had 
so often turned a wistful eye throughout his agitated and anxious life. 
The opening spring caused the rural beauties of the place to exert for 
him all their sweetening influences. His mansion required repair, and 
he wrote : "I am already surrounded by joiners, masons, and painters, 
and such is my anxiety to be out of their hands that I have scarcely a 
room to put a friend into, or to sit in myself, without the music of 
hammers and the odoriferous scent of paint." To another friend: 
" My hours glide smoothly on. The repair of my buildings and cul- 
tivation of my farms will occupy the few years I may be a sojourner 



OF VIRGINIA AND MAR Yf. AND. 67 

here." And so it was. Surrounded by an affectionate family, 
entertaining troops of friends, engaged in the most fascinating of all 
pursuits, truly his "lines were cast in pleasant places." To this 
tranquil life there was but one transient interruption, when, in view of 
the impending war with France, he was called (July 3, 1798) yet 
again into the public service as Commander-in-Chief of all the Ameri- 
can armies, and immediately repaired to Philadelphia, where, in the 
work of organization, he remained until the danger was happily averted, 
when he returned to Mount Vernon, never more to leave it. 

IMPROVEMENT AND PROTECTION OF THE 
MOUNT VERNON ESTATE. 

ELSEWHERE in this " Hand-Book" allusion has been made to the 
changes which have been wrought on the Mount Vernon Estate 
since the passing away of its distinguished proprietor at the close of 
the last century. First, of its rapid decadence, through neglect and 
improvident culture, from well ordered conditions of agriculture to 
those of unthrift and desolation, and finally, after the lapse of half a 
century, of the coming of new hands from places remote, to begin the 
work of transforming the wasted areas to fields of waving grain and 
clover, and to orchards of abundant fruitage. The work of restora- 
tion has been increasing from year to year since 1852, and, now that 
the electric railway has made the entire domain suburban to Alexan- 
dria and Washington, the prospect of still greater improvements be- 
comes brighter and more encouraging. With the cheap and rapid 
transit which will be afforded by this road to and from these cities 
there will doubtless be large accessions of new settlers from localities 
far less favored, to occupy the divisions and subdivisions of the many 
large farms of the estate. 

Just after the Mexican war, when the general government was cast- 
ing about to find a suitable location for the National Military Asylum, 
or Soldiers' Home, as it is now called, the Flon. Lewis McKensie and 
other prominent citizens of Alexandria proposed and strenuously urged 
upon the authorities the acquirements by purchase of a thousand acres 
of the estate for that purpose. No more fitting choice could have 
been made for a soldier's refuge, and the property could have been 
secured at that time for less than thirty thousand dollars. 

In 1S59, the "Ladies' Association," with their patriotic contribu- 
tions of two hundred thousand dollars, purchased the "Mansion" and 
two hundred acres, and began the work of restoring and preserving the 
buildings and the immediate grounds. How well they have succeeded 
in their efforts, the present attractive appearance of the premises and 
the orderly arrangement of policing and other daily duties incident 
to the reception of visitors most satisfactorily attest. But there is a 
rapidly increasing conviction, nevertheless, among all such as rever- 
ence the name and goodly fame of Washington all over our land, that 
the time has come for the control of the " Home and Tomb" to pass 
into the hands of the general government, that our people may be re- 
lieved from the odium of laying all pilgrims to this much frequented 



68 SOME OLD HISTORIC LA XL) MARKS 

shrine under capitation tribute before allowing them permission to 
enter the gates of its enclosures. As Washington was above and be- 
yond all merely mercenary motives, and despised undignified schem- 
ings, so the place which was honored by his living presence and 
which holds his ashes ought to be accessible without money or price. 
In Europe every mausoleum of note is freely opened to visitors with- 
out charge, and not only every mausoleum but every depository of 
arts and literature ; and reproachful allusions are not unfrequently 
heard by American tourists abroad from foreigners who have been re- 
quired to pay a fee at the entrance to the mausoleum of George Wash- 
ington. 

May we not hope that among the many unreasonable customs of our 
country which are doomed to pass away before the march of progress, 
this discreditable custom of levying tribute at the gates of Mount Vernon 
may be among the first to be discontinued. To the objection so often 
urged by those who look with disfavor upon the change proposed, that 
the place under government control would not be so well cared for and 
guarded from depreciations as under the present provident management 
of the ladies, it seems only necessary to refer to the result through 
many years of that control of the Smithsonian and national museums, 
the agricultural grounds, and public parks, the Congressional library 
and other public charges now under exclusive government care. A 
tithe of the yearly appropriations wasted on worthless fortifications 
and warships would amply suffice to keep up all needed repairs at Mt. 
Vernon, and a small detail of soldiers from the army would supply the 
required work of policing and protect all from the hands of the spoiler. 

THE "PRINCETON" CATASTROPHE; BURSTING 
OF THE "PEACEMAKER." 

ON the 28th of February, 1844, a large party of ladies and gentle- 
men of Washington city, including President Tyler and the 
members of his Cabinet with their families, were invited by Commo- 
dore Stockton, of the navy, to pass the day on board the frigate 
" Princeton," lying at anchor off the city of Alexandria. The day 
was fine and the company numerous and brilliant, not fewer than four 
hundred in number, of whom the majority were ladies. After the 
arrival of the guests, the " Princeton" got under way and proceeded 
down the river to a short distance below Fort Washington. During 
the passage clown, the largest gun of the vessel, the " Peacemaker," 
carrying a ball of two hundred and twenty-five pounds, was fired 
several times to test its strength and capacity. The gun had been 
constructed from a model of, and under the immediate direction of, the 
commodore, and Mr. Tyler had manifested a great interest in its 
success. At two p.m. the ladies of the party were invited to a sump- 
tuous repast in the cabin. The gentlemen succeeded them at table, 
and some of them had got through and left it. The ship was on her 
return to her anchorage, and when opposite to Broad Bay, the com- 
modore proposed, for the special gratification of the President and his 
Cabinet, to fire the gun again, a salute, as he said, in honor of the " great 



OF VIRGINIA AND MARYLAND. 69 

peacemaker" of his country — George Washington. Accordingly, all 
the members of the Cabinet started to go up-stairs, the President with 
them, but at that instant they were called back to hear a toast proposed 
by Miss Wicklife. It was this: "The flag of the United States, the 
only thing American that will bear a stripe." This was received 
with great enthusiasm. The President in response then gave as a 
toast, " the three great guns, — the " Princeton," her commander, and 
his "Peacemaker." This was loudly applauded by the ladies, and 
then the members of the Cabinet started to go upstairs again. At 
this moment, Mr. Upshur, of Virginia, Secretary of State, had his 
hand on the President's arm, and said to him, " Come, Mr. Tyler, 
let's go up and see the gun fired." Just then Colonel Dade asked 
Mr. Waller, the President's son-in-law, to sing an old song about 1776. 
The President replied, " No, by George, Upshur, I must stay and hear 
that song ; it's an old favorite of mine. You go up, and I'll join 
you directly." Accordingly, away went Upshur, Gilmer, and the 
others to see the gun fired. Messrs. Benton, Phelps, Hannegan, 
larnegan, Virgil Maxey, Commodore Kennon, Colonel Gardiner, 
and many others following. The President remained below listening 
to the singing, and just as Mr. Waller came to the name of Washing- 
ton off went the gun. "There," said the master of ceremonies, 
" that's in honor of the name, and now for three cheers." And just 
as they were about to give them, a boatswain's mate rushed into the 
cabin begrimed with powder and said that the "big gun" had ex- 
ploded and killed many of those on deck. On this announcement 
the shrieks and agonizing cries of the women were heart-rending, — all 
calling for their husbands, fathers, brothers, and so on, rushing wildly 
into their arms and fainting with excess of feeling. When the gun 
was fired the whole ship shook, and a dense cloud of smoke envel- 
oped the entire group on the forecastle, but when this blew away an 
awful scene presented itself to the spectator. 

The lower part of the gun, from the trunnions to the breech, was 
blown off, and one-half section of it was lying on Mr. Upshur. It 
took two sailors to remove it. Mr. Upshur was badly cut over the 
eye and on his legs; his clothes were literally torn from his body. He 
expired in about three minutes. Governor Gilmer, of Virginia, was 
found to be equally badly injured. He had evidently been struck by 
the section of the gun before it had reached Mr. Upshur. Mr. Sykes, 
member of Congress from New Jersey, endeavored to raise him from 
the floor, but was unable. A mattress was brought for him, but he 
soon expired. Mr. Maxey, of Maryland, had his arms and one of his 
legs cut off, the pieces of flesh hanging to his mutilated limbs, cold 
and bloodless, in a manner truly frightful. He died instantly. Mr. 
Gardiner, ex-member of New York, and Commodore Kennon, lingered 
about half an hour, unconscious, and expired without a groan. The 
flags of the Union were placed over the dead bodies as their winding 
sheets. Behind the gun, the scene, though at first equally distressing, 
was less alarming. Commodore Stockton, who was knocked down, 
almost instantly rose to his feet and jumped on to the wooden' carriage 
to survey the effects of the calamity. All the hair of his head and 



7° 



SOME OLD HISTORIC LANDMARKS 



face was burnt off. Judge Phelps, of Vermont, had his hat blown off. 
Nine seamen were seriously wounded and Colonel Benton and many 
others were stunned by the explosion. Such was the force of it that 
the starboard and larboard bulwarks of the ship were shattered and the 
gun blown into many pieces. 

Judge Wilkins had taken his stand by the side of Governor Gilmer, 
but some remarks falling from the lips of the latter, and perceiving 
that the gun was about to be fired he exclaimed, "Though Secretary 
of War, I don't like this firing, and believe that I shall run," so saying 
he retreated, suiting the action to the word, and escaped injury. The 
most heart-rending scene, however, was that which followed. The 
two daughters of Mr. Gardiner, of 'New York, were both on board and 
lamenting the death of their father, while Mrs. Gilmer, from whom 
they in vain attempted to keep the dreadful news of the death of her 
husband, presented truly a spectacle fit to be depicted by a tragedian. 
There she sat on deck, with hair dishevelled, pale as death, struggling 
with her feelings, and with the dignity of a woman, her lips quivering, 
her eyes fixed and upturned without a tear, soliloquising, " Oh, certainly 
not ! Mr. Gilmer cannot be dead ! Who would dare to injure him? 
Yes, O Lord, have mercy upon me! O Lord, have mercy upon him!" 
And then, still more apparently calm and seeming to be collected, 
with the furies tearing her heart within, " I beseech you, gentlemen, 
to tell me where my husband is! Oh! impossible, impossible ! and 
he, can he, can he be dead? Impossible." Here Mr. Senator Rives, 
of Virginia, drew near. " Come near, Mr. Rives," she said in a soft 
whisper, which resembled Ophelia's madness, "tell me where my 
husband is — tell me if he is dead. Now certainly, Mr. Rives, this is 
impossible." Mr. Rives stood speechless, the tears trickling down 
his cheeks. "I tell you, Mr. Rives, it is impossible," she almost 
screeched ; and then again moderating her voice, " Now do tell his 
wife if her husband lives!" Here several ladies exclaimed, "God 
grant that she may be able to cry ; it would relieve her" — " if not, she 
must die of a broken heart." 

A daughter of Mr. Gardiner, one of the victims of the ill-fated 
party, and to whom the President was paying attention, and who in 
the following June became his wife, gave the following relation a few 
years ago. " When we got down to the collation served in the cabin, 
the President seated me at the head of the table with him and handed 
me a glass of champagne. My father was standing just back of my 
chair, so I handed the glass over my shoulder, saying, 'Here, pa.' 
He did not take it, but said, ' My time will come.' He meant his 
'time to be served,' but the words have always seemed to me pro- 
phetic. That moment some one called down to the President to come 
and see the last shot fired, but he replied that he could not go. as he 
was better engaged. My father started with some other gentlemen 
and left us. Just then we heard the report, and the smoke began to 
come down the companion-way. 'Something must be wrong,' 1 
said to a bystander, who started to go and see. He got to the door, 
then turned around and gave me such a look of horror, that 1 never 
shall forget it. That momenl I heard some one say, ' The Secretary 



OF VIRGINIA AND MARYLAND. 



71 



of State is dead.' I was frightened, of course, and tried to get up 
stairs. ' Something dreadful has happened,' I exclaimed. ' Let me go 
to my father!' I cried, but they kept me back. Some one told me 
the gun had exploded, but that there was such a crowd around the 
scene it would be useless for me to try to get there. I said that my 
father was there, and that I must know if any evil had befallen him. 
Then they told me he had been wounded. That drove me frantic. I 
begged them to let me go and help him — that he loved me, and 
would want me near him. A lady, seeing my agony, said to me, 
' My dear child, you can do no good ; your father is in heaven.' " 

The bodies of the victims of this dire calamity, which cast a gloom 
over the whole land, were taken up to the Capital. Five hearses, con- 
veying the remains of Messrs Upshur, Gilmer, Kennon, Maxey, and 
Gardiner, followed by a long train of carriages and a great concourse 
of citizens, on horseback and afoot, passed in silence up Pennsylvania 
Avenue and proceeded to the Executive Mansion. The coffins of the 
distinguished dead were taken into the East Room and placed on biers 
to await the funeral solemnities which occurred oil the Saturday 
following. 



<R. 







